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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/8671-8.txt b/8671-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7446b83 --- /dev/null +++ b/8671-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7757 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pagans, by Arlo Bates + +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: The Pagans + +Author: Arlo Bates + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8671] +Release Date: August, 2005 +First Posted: July 31, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE PAGANS + +By + +Arlo Bates + + + +The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. + _All's Well That Ends Well_; iv--3 + + + + +DEDICATION. + + +To those who would be Pagans, did any such organization +exist, I take pleasure in offering this attempt to picture a phase +of life which they know. + + + + She answered, "cast thy rosary on the ground; bind on thy + shoulder the thread of paganism; throw stones at the glass of + piety; and quaff from a full goblet." + _Persian Religious Hymn._ + + + +CONTENTS. + + I. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE + II. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT + III. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT + IV. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT + V. THE BITTER PAST + VI. A BOND OF AIR + VII. IN WAY OF TASTE + VIII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE + IX. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE + X. O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT + XI. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED + XII. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED + XIII. THE ASSAY OF ART + XIV. THIS IS NOT A BOON + XV. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL + XVI. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH + XVII. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES + XVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE + XIX. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS + XX. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED + XXI. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH + XXII. UPON A CHURCH-BENCH + XXIII. HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT, + XXIV. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING, + XXV. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME, + XXVI. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION, + XXVII. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE, + XXVIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE, + XXIX. A NECESSARY EVIL, + XXX. HOW CHANCES MOCK, + XXXI. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY, + XXXII. A SYMPATHY OF WOE, + XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN, + XXXIV. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY, + XXXV. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP, + XXXVI. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND, + XXXVII. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + + + + +PAGANS + + +I. + +SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE. + Measure for Measure, v--i. + + +A fine, drizzling rain was striking against the windows of a cosy third +floor sitting-room, obscuring what in pleasant weather was a fine +distant view of the Charles river. The apartment was evidently that of +a woman, as numerous details of arrangement and articles of feminine +use suggested; and quite as evidently it was the home of a person of +taste and refinement, and of one, too, who had traveled. + +Arthur Fenton, a slender young artist, with elegant figure and deep set +eyes, was lounging in an easy chair in an attitude well calculated to +show to advantage his graceful outlines. For occupation he was turning +over a portfolio of sketches, whose authorship was indicated by the +attitude of the lady seated near by. + +She was a woman of commanding presence, with full lips, whose +expression was contradicted by the almost haughty carriage of her fine +head and the keen glance of her eye, which indicated too much character +for the mere pleasure-seeker. Her hair was of a rich chestnut, and she +wore a dress of steel gray cashmere, relieved at the throat by a knot +of pale orange, which harmonized admirably with her clear complexion. +She watched her companion as if secretly anxious for his good opinion +of her drawings, yet too proud to betray any feeling in the matter. He, +for his part, turned them over with seeming listlessness, breaking out +now and then with some abrupt remark. + +"Yes," he said suddenly, after a ten minutes' silence, "I'm going to be +married at once. It will be 'a marriage in the bush,' as the Suabians +call an impecunious match, since neither of us has any money; and I, at +least, haven't so great a superfluity of brains that in this +intelligent age of the world I am ever likely to make much by selling +myself; and that is the only way any body gets any money nowadays." + +"I hardly think you'd be willing to sell," his companion answered, "no +matter how good the market." + +"There's where you are wrong," he answered, looking up with a sudden +frown, "the worst thing about me is that with sufficient inducement--or +even merely from the temptation of an especially good opportunity--I +should sell myself body and soul to the Philistines." + +"One would hardly fancy it, from the way you talk of Peter Calvin and +his followers." + +"Oh, as to that," retorted the artist, "don't you see that judicious +opposition increases my market value when I am ready to sell? If I +could only be sufficiently prominent in my antagonism, I might +absolutely fix my own price." + +The lady made no answer, but regarded him more intently than ever. + +"That's a good thing," he broke out again, holding up a drawing. "Why +don't you do that in marble, or better still, in bronze?" + +"I am putting it up in clay," she answered. "I thought I had shown it +to you. It is to be fired as my first experiment in a big piece of +terra-cotta. That is the first sketch; I think I have improved upon +it." + +It was the study for a bas-relief representing the months, twelve +characteristic figures running forward with the utmost speed. Gifts +dropped from their hands as they ran; from the fingers of June fell +flowers, from those of August and September ripened fruits, upon which +November and December trampled ruthlessly. January, in his haste, +overturned an altar against which February stumbles. + +"It is melancholy enough," Fenton observed, regarding it closely. "How +melancholy every thing is now-a-days?" + +"To a man about to be married?" she asked, with a fine smile. + +"Oh, always to me. The fact that I am going to be married does not +prevent my still being myself." + +"Unfortunately not," she returned, with a faint suspicion of sarcasm in +her tone. "You pique yourself upon being somber." + +"I dare say," answered he, a trifle petulantly. "Pain has become a +habit with me; discontent is about the only luxury I can afford, heaven +knows!" + +"Unless it is gorgeous cravats." + +"Oh, that," Fenton said, putting his hand to the blue and gold tie at +his throat. "I'm trying to furbish up my old body and decrepit heart +against my nuptials, so I invested fifty cents in this tie." + +"You couldn't have done it cheaper," remarked she; "though, perhaps," +she added dryly, "it is all the rejuvenation is worth." + +Fenton smiled grimly and again applied himself to the examination of +the drawings, while the other looked out at the rain. + +"Boston has more climate, and that far worse," she remarked, "than any +other known locality." + +"Does that mean that you are going to Herman's this afternoon?" asked +Fenton. + +"I should have gone this morning if you had not insisted upon my +wasting my time simply because you had determined to waste yours." + +Fenton laughed. + +"You are frank to a guest," he said. "I wished to be congratulated on +my marriage." + +"I shall not congratulate you," she answered. "You are spoiled. The +women have petted you too much." + +"According to the old fairy tale all goes well with the man of whom the +women are fond." + +"I remember," she said. "I always pitied their wives." + +"I shall treat Edith well." + +"You are too good-natured not to, I suppose; especially when you look +forward to your marriage with such rapture." + +"But, Helen, have I ever pretended to believe in marriage? Marriage is +a crime! Think of the wretched folly of those who talk of the holiness +of love's being protected by the sanctities of marriage. If love is +holy, let it have way; if it is not, all the sacraments priests can +devise cannot sanctify it." + +"Then why, Arthur, do you marry at all?" + +"Because marriage is a necessary evil as society is at present +constituted." + +"But," Helen said slowly, "you who pretend to have so little regard for +society--" + +"Ah, there it is," he interrupted. "Man is gregarious by instinct; he +must do as his fellows do. He must submit to the most absurd +_convenances_ of his fellowmen, as one sheep jumps where another +did though the bar be taken away. If he were strong enough to stand +alone he might take conventions by the throat and be a god!" + +His outburst was too vehement and sudden not to come from some +underlying current of deep feeling, rather than from the present +conversation. He had risen while speaking, his head thrown back, his +eyes sparkling. His companion regarded him with admiration, not +unmixed, however, with amusement. + +"And you," she said, "choose to call yourself a man without +enthusiasms." + +"Yes," replied he, smiling and regaining his seat, "I am a man without +enthusiasms." + +"That is the cleverest thing you ever said," Helen continued, musingly. +"And so we understand you intend to be ruled by conventionality and +marry?" + +"Precisely; it would be unjust to Edith to even talk to her of my +views." + +"I should hope so!" exclaimed his hostess. "But you will at least have +her to yourself, and that pays for every thing." + +"Oh, _peutêtre!_" Fenton returned dubiously, perfectly well aware +that the remark had been made to elicit comment, yet too fond of +talking to resist temptation and leave it unanswered, "_peutêtre_, +though I never believed in the desert-island theory. It is more in your +line; you still have faith in it." + +"Oh, I do," she rejoined quickly; "and so would you if you were in +love. You'd be content to be on a rock in the mid ocean if she were +there." + +"Love on a desert island," returned the young man, smiling +significantly; "Oh, _le premier jour, c'est bon; le deuxième jour, ce +n'est pas si bon; le troisième jour--mon Dieu, mais comment on +s'ennuie!_" + +"No, no, no," Helen broke in impetuously. "Good, always! Always, +always, or never!" + +Fenton threw back his head and burst into a shout of laughter. + + "'Twere errant folly to presume, + Love's flame could burn and not consume," + +he sang, going off again into peals of laughter. "Good by, _mon +amie_; oh, _mais comment on s'en--_" + +"Stop," interrupted she. "I'll have no more blasphemy." + +"Good-by, then," he said, picking up his hat. + +"You may as well stay to lunch," his hostess said rising. + +"No," returned he. "I must go and write to Edith." + +And off he went, humming: + + "'Twere errant folly to presume + Love's flame could burn and not consume." + + + + +II. + +THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. + Measure for Measure; iv--i. + +As many of the Boston clocks as ever permitted themselves so far to +break through their constitutional reserve as to speak above a whisper, +had announced in varying tones that it was midnight, yet the group of +men seated in easy attitudes before the fire in one of the +sitting-rooms of the St. Filipe Club showed no signs of breaking up. +Indeed, the room was so pleasant and warm, with its artistically +combined colors, its good pictures and glowing grates, and the storm +outside raged so savagely, beating its wind and sleet against the +windows, that a reluctance to issue from the clubhouse door was only +natural, and there would be little room for surprise should the men +conclude to remain where they were until daylight. + +The conversation, carried on amid clouds of fragrant tobacco smoke and +with potations, not excessive but comfortably frequent, was quiet and +unflagging, possessing, for the most part, that mellow quality which is +seldom attained before the small hours and the third cigar. + +"Yes, virtue has to be its own reward," Tom Bently was saying lightly, +"for, don't you see, the people who practice it are too narrow-minded +to appreciate any thing else." + +"And that makes it the most poorly paid of all the professions," was +the retort of Fred Rangely, who was lounging in a big easy chair; +"except literature, that is. Even sin is said to get death for its +wage, and that is something." + +"Virtue may be an inestimable prize for any thing you newspaper men can +tell. It is not a commodity you are used to handling." + +"Literature has little to do with virtue, it is true," was the +response. "Who would read a novel about virtuous people, for instance? +I'd as soon study the catechism." + +"How art has to occupy itself with iniquity," Fenton observed with a +philosophical puff of his cigar. "Or what people call iniquity; though +a truer definition would be nature." + +"Painting occupies itself with iniquity in its models," Rangely said +lazily. "I heard to-day--" + +"No scandals," interrupted Grant Herman, good humoredly. "You are going +to tell the story about Flackerman, I know." + +The speaker was the most noticeable man in the group. Tom Bently, an +artist, was a tall, swarthy fellow with thin black beard, stubble-like +hair, and a gypsyish look. Next came Fred Rangely, an author of some +reputation, of whom his friends expected great things, rather short in +stature, thick-set, and with a good-tempered, intelligent face. +Fenton's appearance has already been touched upon; he was of elegant +figure, with a face intellectual, high-bred, but marred by a suspicion +of superciliousness. Amid these friends, Herman gained something by +contrast with each and naturally became the center of the group. This +prominence was partly due to his figure, of large mold, finely formed +and firmly knit, carrying always an air of restful strength and +composure which made itself felt in whatever company he found himself. +His head, although not out of proportion with his fine shoulders and +trunk, was somewhat massive, a fact which was emphasized a little by +the profusion of his locks, now plentifully sprinkled with gray. His +face was indicative of much character, the lips firm and full, the eyes +large and dark, now serious under their heavy brows and now twinkling +with contagious merriment. + +"It isn't every model you can talk scandal about," chuckled Bently, in +reply to Herman's remark. "We had a devilishly pretty fuss in Nick +Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the new +model." + +"What new model?" inquired Fenton, arranging himself into an effective +pose before the fire. + +"Do you remember the picture of an Italian girl that Tom Demming sent +to the Academy exhibition two years ago? A homely face with lots of +character in it, and a splendid pose?" + +"You mean the one he called _Marietta?_ It was well done, if I +remember." + +"Oh, stunningly. That's the girl. She's just landed, and Demming gave +her letters to me. She's a staving good model!" + +"But she isn't pretty." + +"No; but she is suggestive. She has one of those faces that you can +make all sorts of things out of. Rollins made a sketch of her head that +is stunning; a lovely thing; and it looked like her too. Then her +figure is perfect, and what is more, she knows how to pose. She meets +an idea half way, you know, and hits the expression wonderfully. She +has given me points for my picture every time she has been at the +studio." + +"Is her name Ninitta?" Grant Herman asked. + +"Yes; do you know any thing about her?" + +"I think I've seen her in Rome. But what is she doing on this side of +the water?" + +To Arthur Fenton's keen perception there seemed more feeling in the +tone than an inquiry into the affairs of a stranger would be likely to +evoke, but he gave the matter no especial thought. + +"Yes," he echoed lightly, "what is she here for? There is no art in +this country. New York is the home of barbarism and Boston of +Philistinism; while Cincinnati is a chromo imitation of both. She'd +better have staid abroad." + +"Your remark is true, Arthur," Bently laughed, "if it isn't very +relevant. What people in this country want isn't art at all, but what +some Great Panjandrum or other abroad has labeled art. They don't know +what is good." + +"That is so true," was the retort, "that I almost wonder they don't buy +your pictures, Tom." + +"But why does the girl come to America?" persisted Herman, with a faint +trace of irritation in his tone. "She could do far better at home." + +"Oh, Demming wrote that she was bound to come. You can never tell what +ails a woman anyhow. Probably she has a lover over here somewhere." + +Herman made no reply save by an involuntary lowering of his heavy +brows, and Rangely brought the conversation back to its starting-point +by asking: + +"But what about Nick Featherstone?" + +"Oh, Nick? Well, Nick tried to kiss her yesterday, and she offered to +stab him with some sort of a devilish dagger arrangement she carries +about like an opera heroine." + +"Featherstone is always a strong temptation to an honest man's boot," +growled Herman out of his beard, as he sat with his head sunk upon his +breast, staring into the fire. + +"They had a scene that wouldn't have done discredit to a first-class +opera-bouffe company," Bently went on, laughing at the remembrance. + +"Nick was fool enough to hollo to somebody in the next room, and the +result was that we all came trooping in like a chorus. It was absurd +enough." + +And he laughed afresh. + +"But the girl?" persisted Grant Herman, not removing his gaze from the +fire. "How did she take it?" + +"Oh, she was as calm and cold as you please. She gathered herself +together and went off without any fuss." + +"I wish when you are done with her, you'd send her round to me," Herman +rejoined. "I want a model for a figure, and if I remember her, she'll +do capitally." + +He rose as he spoke, with the air of a man who intends going home. + +"By the way," Fenton said to him, "isn't the Pagan night next week? +Don't you have it this month?" + +"Yes; you'll get your invitations sometime or other. Good night all." + +"Oh, don't break good company," Rangely remonstrated. "I have half a +bottle here, and I do hate an alcoholic soliloquy." + +But the movement for departure was general, and in a few moments more +the members of the company were wending their individual ways homeward +through the pelting rain. + + + + +III. + +THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT. + Othello; iv.--i. + + +The sun shone brightly in at the windows of a little bare studio next +morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the +night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, +turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over her modeling. + +She seemed to find in her work a joy which accorded well with the +bright day. Pinned to the wall was an improved sketch of the bas-relief +whose design had attracted Fenton's notice in her portfolio, while +before the artist stood a copy in clay, upon which she was working with +those mysterious touches which to the uninitiated are mere meaningless +dabs, yet under which the figures were growing into sightliness and +beauty. + +Suddenly her song was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, +followed by a tap upon her door. + +"Come," she called; and Grant Herman entered in response to the +invitation. + +He carried in his arms a large vase, about whose sides green and golden +dragons coiled themselves in fantastic relief. + +"Your vase came from the kiln," he said, "and I knew you would want to +see it at once. It is the most successful firing they have done here." + +"Oh, I am so glad," she returned, laying down her modeling tools, and +approaching him eagerly. "I was sure there wouldn't be a head or a tail +left by the time the poor monsters came out of the fiery furnace. What +a splendid color that back is! And that golden fin is gorgeous." + +"Yes, Mrs. Greyson," Herman said, "you have produced a veritable +dragon's brood this time. I can almost hear them hiss." + +"Do you know," she responded, smoothing the glittering shapes with half +chary touches. "I should not be wholly willing to have the vase in my +room at night. They might, you know, come to life and go gliding about +in a ghastly way." + +"I always wondered," the sculptor observed, "that Eve had the courage +to talk with the serpent. Do you suppose she squealed when she saw +him?" + +"Oh, no, she probably divined that mischief was brewing, and that +contented her." + +Herman had set the vase where all its gorgeous hues were brought out by +the sun, which sparkled and danced upon every spine and scale of the +writhing monsters. He walked away from it to observe the effect at a +greater distance. + +"There is no pleasure like that of creating," he said. "Man is a god +when he can look on his work and pronounce it good." + +"Which is seldom," she returned, "unless in the one instant after its +completion when we still see what we intended rather than what we have +made." + +"It is fortunate our work cannot rise up to reproach us for the wide +difference between our intents and our performances. Fancy one of my +statues taking me to task because it hasn't the glory it had in my +brain." + +"It is on that account," Mrs. Greyson said smiling, "that I fancy +Galatea must have been most uncomfortable to live with. Whenever +Pygmalion found fault, she had always the retort ready: 'At least I am +exactly what you chose to make me.' Poor Pygmalion!" + +"It was no more true than in the case of every man that marries; we all +bow down to ideals, I suppose. Except," he added with a little +hesitation, "myself, of course." + +The words were somewhat awkward in the hesitating accent which gave +them a suggestiveness at which the faintest of flushes mounted to her +cheek. She bent her observations more closely on the vase. + +"It is fired so much better than the last miserable failure," observed +she, going to a shelf and reaching after a dusty vase, massive and +fantastic, which had been ruined in the kiln. + +"Let me help you," Herman said. + +But she had already loosened the vase, which proved heavier than she +expected, and it was only by darting forward, and throwing his arms +about her, that the sculptor was enabled to save her from a severe +blow. The vase fell crashing to the floor, breaking into heavy shards, +rattling the windows and the casts upon the wall by the concussion. + +An exclamation escaped him. He had drawn Mrs. Greyson backward, and for +a brief instant, held her in his strong clasp. It was an accident which +to mere acquaintances might mean nothing; to lovers, every thing. +Herman was for a moment pale with the fear that Helen might be injured; +then the hot blood surged into his cheeks as he released his hold and +stepped back, He bent over the fragments of the vase that she might not +see his face, and by so doing, as he reflected afterward, he failed to +perceive what was her expression. He straightened himself with an +impetuous movement, and came a step nearer. + +"How can you be so careless?" he demanded, almost with irritation. "It +might have killed you." + +"I did not remember that it was so heavy," she returned, a little pale +and panting. "Do you think I was trying to pull it on my head? I am +very much obliged, though. You have saved me a heavy blow at least. +There is not much left of that unlucky vase. It was always +ill-starred." + +"All's well that ends well," returned the sculptor, sufficiently +recovering his self-control to speak lightly; "only don't run such a +risk another time." + +"Oh, I assure you," she replied, "I do not make my vases either to +break my head or to be broken themselves. I shall take better care of +this one, you may be confident." + +"I was more concerned for yourself than for the vase." + +"For myself it really does not so much matter." + +"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so." + +"Oh,--my friends!" + +Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom or +exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of +interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares +of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant +and perplexing. + +She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the +modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand reflections +danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in the +sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of +jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as +the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling +spines. + +"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed, +twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother +Eve, do you think?" + +"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd +brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the +occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of +it." + +A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand +abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her with +a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The +movement touched her companion as no words could have done. + +"I beg your pardon," he muttered. + +And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly +and quitted the room. + + + + +IV. + +AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT. + Henry VIII.; i.--3. + + +"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur, +that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to +at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the +unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the +wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw +it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago." + +"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never +be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; +and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far +off that I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is +imminent at all." + +"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a +pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is +advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom." + +"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it +altogether until it comes." + +"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll +find when the day of doom swoops down on you." + +They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery +of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe +by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a +little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the +errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being +accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this +might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before their +marriage. + +She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet +representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton +sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, +then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her. + +"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he +remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an +irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out +the catch-penny hand of a beggar." + +"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that +is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real goddess has her +temples here." + +"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the +way you mean." + +A shadow passed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him. + +"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly +about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at +first, but you--" + +"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the +conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma +petite_. Don't mind it." + +"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter +talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--" + +She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because +her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might +offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly +avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new +channel. + +"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are +only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of +questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised +Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here +twice that time already." + +He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and +down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her +face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real +importance to her. + +"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they +descended the wide staircase. + +She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way +collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a +somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed +deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm, +impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with +lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was +placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more +than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the +shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless +eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still +keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer. + +Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have +stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a +way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed. + +"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How +much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give +us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she +would but condescend to speak." + +"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling. + +"But Pasht belies her sex by not being a communicative party," was her +companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a +characteristic of the gods." + +"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even +for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your +cat-headed goddess?" + +"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she +has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the +goddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort +of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose." + +"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith +said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag +from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty. + +"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the +tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of +minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for +this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the +figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but +may come to blows any time." + +He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the +conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr. +Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a +woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the +statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was +waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking: + +"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--" + +"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he +were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further +from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name +by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month +in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no +organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently +puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply. + +"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and +surreptitiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your sex. I'll +come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by." + +He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his +own way. + + + + +V. + +THE BITTER PAST. + All's Well that Ends Well; v.--3. + + +"The Pagans: Friday, Jan. 17. +Pipes, pictures and punch. + GRANT HERMAN." + + +Such was the invitation received one day by each of the Pagans, under a +seal bearing the impress of the goddess Pasht. + +There is little that need be added to Fenton's account of the Pagans. +The society had no organization beyond a rule to meet each month and to +limit its membership to seven; no especial principles beyond an +unformulated although by no means unexpressed antagonism against +Philistinism. Fenton had suggested Pasht as a sort of _dea mater_, +and had furnished the seal bearing the image of that goddess which it +was customary to use upon the notifications of meetings; and for the +rest there was nothing definite to distinguish this group of earnest +and sometimes fiery young men from any other. They doubtless said a +great many foolish things, but they did so many wise ones that it +seemed but reasonable to assume that there must be some grains of +wisdom mingled with whatever dross was to be found in their speech. + +Their views were extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining +astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try +the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were +restrained by any conventionality from a free expression of opinion. + +It was on the afternoon of the day fixed for the Pagan meeting when +Helen Greyson took her way across the Common and through the business +portion of the city to the building down by the wharves where were the +studios of Herman and his pupils. It was feebly raining, the weather +having been decidedly whimsical all that week, and the clouds rolled in +ragged, sullen masses overhead. Helen felt the gloom of the day as a +vague depression which she endeavored in vain to shake off, and +hastened towards her studio, hoping to be able to lose herself in her +work. + +Picking her steps among the piles of fire-brick and terra-cotta which +lumbered the yard and the long shed skirting the building, which was a +terra-cotta manufactory, she let herself in at a side door and went +directly to her studio. + +Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment +studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to +work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition. + +She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon +the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer +to her invitation, Grant Herman entered. + +He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse +bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in +an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, +giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in +his eye harmonized well. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then +stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence. + +"Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil +asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that +despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in +the best of spirits. + +"No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation +in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify +those folds--so." + +As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. +Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and +without thought she said, involuntarily: + +"You have a new ring!" + +"Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an +intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in +Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and +at his death he in turn sent it back to me." + +"But Hoffmeir has been dead several years." + +"More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands." + +The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, +and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the +exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its +origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save +that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal +bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from +the awakening of memories connected with it. + +"It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it +does, so long after Hoffmeir's death." + +"It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with +it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you +can send no answer!" + +The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. +Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having +never before seen him so deeply moved. + +"I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said seemed +intrusive, though of course it was not meant to be." + +"It did not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent +my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." + +"I hope nothing bad has happened," said Helen, quickly. + +"No, nothing; it's only this message from dear old Hoffmeir." + +He walked away and pulled aside the curtain which screened the lower +half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a +vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her +modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how +best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved +inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy +walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of +the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, +and from that turned toward the robust form by the window. + +"Come, Mr. Herman," she said at length, in a tone half jesting, "I +never saw you so somber." + +"It is not that Hoffmeir is dead, poor fellow!" Herman replied, +answering her unspoken question. "I'd made up my mind to endure that, +and any man with his over-sensitive temperament is better off on the +other side of the grass than this any day. I may as well tell you, Mrs. +Greyson, though as a rule I do not find much comfort in blurting out +things. The fact is that Hoffmeir and I quarreled over a girl. We were +both in love with her, like two young fools as we were; but she'd +promised to marry me, and--it was a deal better that she didn't, too. I +thought he tried to take her from me. Now I know I was wrong, and that +Fritz was as high-souled as a god in the matter; but then I sent him +back his ring, and broke off with him and her too. I was a fiery young +fool in those days," he added, with a sad and bitter smile, "a young +fool." + +"And was it never explained?" + +"Never until to-day. He was far too proud a man to call me back." + +"But the girl?" queried Helen, with increasing eagerness. "What did she +do?" + +"Oh, the girl," he repeated, turning away again and directing his gaze +out of the window; "what would you expect her to do? She was only a +peasant; and though I was honest enough then, I outgrew that fever +centuries ago." + +"Yes, you did," returned Helen, with gentle persistence, "but what did +she do?" + +"What do women usually do when they break with one lover? Get another, +I suppose!" + +The words were so hard and coarse to come from a man like Grant Herman +that she involuntarily looked up quickly at him, and perhaps he noticed +the action. + +It was evident that some deep pain had provoked the expression, yet had +found no relief in the rough words. The sculptor turned toward his +companion as if to speak. Then slowly his eyes fell, and he said +firmly, if a little stiffly: + +"I believe I do her injustice. If she ever loved a man she was one who +would love him always." + +He left the little room without more words, his firm, even tread +sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio +was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay +wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in +thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to +give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her +bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she passed +the door of Herman's studio the sculptor opened it. + +"I do not know," he said, extending his hand, "what made me so rude +this afternoon. I am a bear of a fellow, but I had meant to treat you +well." + +He had fully recovered his composure, but his evident desire to efface +the impression he had made naturally rendered it more lasting in +Helen's mind. + + + + +VI. + +A BOND OF AIR. + Troilus and Cressida; i.--3. + + +Had Helen been present at the scene which took place in Herman's studio +earlier in the afternoon, she would perhaps have wondered less at his +disturbance. + +In response to the sculptor's request made at the Club when Ninitta's +name was first mentioned, Bently, when the girl finished posing for +him, sent her to the sculptor's studio. + +She came a day or two later than Bently had directed her, not +hastening, although for six years she had shaped her entire life to the +end of meeting Grant Herman. She came into the studio as calmly and as +quietly as if it were some familiar place which she had left but +yesterday, and she greeted the sculptor with as even and musical tone +as in the old Roman days when as yet nothing had occurred to stir her +peaceful bosom. + +For his part the man stood and looked at her in silence. Even when a +ghost from the past has appeared at his especial summons, one seldom +sees it unmoved, and Herman was conscious that his heart beat more +quickly, that he breathed more heavily as Ninitta let fall behind her +the rug _portière_ and came towards him through the studio. + +She had a dark, homely face, only redeemed from positive ugliness by +her deep, expressive eyes. Her figure was superb; rather slender, lithe +and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was +long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep +of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably +adapted to display the lines of her supple form. As she walked down the +studio, setting her feet firmly and carrying her head with fine poise, +Grant Herman felt the ghost of an old passion stir in his heart. + +"How do you do?" he composedly answered her greeting. "You have +improved since I saw you last." + +"Thank you," she said, in a rich voice with strong but pleasant accent. +"I have had time." + +"But improvement is not always a question of time," returned he. "Look +at me." + +"You have grown old," Ninitta commented, regarding him keenly. "You are +gray now." + +"Yes," retorted the other lightly, "I am an old man. It is really a +very long time since you posed for me in my little den at Rome." + +"You remember those days perhaps, sometimes?" she said, dropping the +long lashes over her eyes. + +A shadow passed over Herman's high brow. + +"Is one likely to forget such days?" he demanded. "Is one likely to +forget how love may be turned to treachery and--" + +"Pardon," the woman interrupted with dignity. "I did not come to be +reproached, _eccelenza_. You have not forgotten Signor Hoffmeir?" + +"No," he answered, with a deepening frown. "I have not forgotten the +man who pretended to be my friend and proved it by stealing my +betrothed." + +"It is well that you have not forgotten," Ninitta went on calmly, but +earnestly, "for I have a message from him. He charged me when he was +dying," she added, crossing herself, "to give it to you with my own +hands. I have been waiting for all these years, but now I am free of my +promise." + +Herman took the packet she extended toward him, and turned abruptly +away. Ninitta seated herself in one of the tall easy chairs, removed +her hat, and began a leisurely survey of the place. The sounds from the +wharf outside, the cries of the sailors, the creaking of the cordage +and the ships came softened and mellowed like the daylight into the +wide, dim studio, giving a certain sense of remoteness by the contrast +they suggested between the silence within and the stir of the world +without. For all her outward calm, Ninitta's heart was beating hotly, +and she longed with a great yearning for a touch from the hand of the +silent man before her; for a word of kindness from his lips. She +watched him furtively, under cover of looking at a cast of Celini's +Perseus upon a bracket above his head, as he stood reading the letter +from Hoffmeir. + +"Why did you not bring this to me before?" the sculptor asked at +length, turning towards her. "It is six years now." + +"Have I been able to shape my life?" returned Ninitta. "I have followed +you to Florence, to Paris; you came to America. I followed you to New +York; you were here. I have never ceased trying to reach you. It was +not easy for me to cross half the world alone and without help; with no +friends, no money; with nothing." + +"But you have been in Boston a couple of months." + +"Yes," she said quietly, looking up into his face. "But you knew it. I +waited for you to send for me." + +"I have only known it a week," was the sculptor's reply. "Do you know +what was in Hoffmeir's letter?" + +"His ring; the one you wore in Rome." + +"But do you know what he wrote?" + +"No," she answered. "How should I?" + +Her questioner looked at her a moment in silence. She put up her head +proudly with an involuntary response to the questioning which his +silence implied, and met his eyes unflinchingly. Yet he put his thought +into words. + +"It is seven years since I saw you," he said at length. + +"It is seven years," she echoed. + +"In seven years a great deal may happen," continued he, still regarding +her closely. + +"Much, much has happened," she returned, still meeting his gaze without +shrinking. + +"Are you married?" he asked, with a certain abruptness which to a +careful observer might have indicated that the question cost him an +effort. + +"No," Ninitta returned simply; "how could I be when I was betrothed to +you?" + +"But that was broken off--" + +The sentence stuck in his throat; and he wondered that he could have +begun it. He wondered, too, how he could even have doubted the faith of +the woman before him; and most of all he wondered if he had ever really +loved her. He had an irritating consciousness that something was +expected of him which he was unwilling to give; some sign of +tenderness, some caress such as befitted the reconciliation of lovers +long separated by misunderstanding and blinding jealousy. He felt as if +he were falling below the demands of the occasion, most annoying of +sensations to the masculine mind. But an important interview can with +difficulty be changed from the key in which it is begun, and even had +his feelings prompted a display of tenderness, he felt that it would +seem abrupt and forced. He waited for Ninitta to speak. + +"Yes," she said, after a moment, as he did not continue, "it was broken +off, but Signor Hoffmeir said that was because you did not understand, +and that everything would be as it had been when you got his letter." + +A sad hopelessness began to appear in her eyes; she had of old been too +accustomed to submit to her lover's will to assume the initiative now, +despite the development and strength which time had given to her +character. The sculptor did not dream how her heart throbbed beneath +her quiet demeanor, but he was too sensitive not to be touched by the +unconscious appeal of her voice and look. + +Seven years before, an enthusiastic student in Rome, he had loved or +believed he loved, the peasant girl Ninitta, whom he had found in an +excursion to Capri and induced to come to the Eternal City as a model. + +Too honorable to betray her, he had meant to make the model his wife, +and was betrothed to her with a solemnity of which he was keenly +reminded to-day by the ring which she still wore upon her finger. +Circumstances had convinced him, however, that Ninitta was deceiving +him, and that she preferred the artist Hoffmeir, his best friend. To +break off both engagement and friendship without listening to a word +of explanation, to leave Rome and Italy, were comparatively easy for a +passionate man stung to the quick by a double treachery. To forget was +more difficult, and although a thousand times had Herman assured +himself that he had extinguished the last spark of emotion concerning +this episode, the faintest breath of an old memory was still sufficient +to rekindle some seemingly dead ember. To-day, holding in his hand the +letter from his lost friend which removed all his doubts, he saw that +instead of being injured he had himself been cruel and unjust; he felt +the full anguish of having committed an irreparable fault. We may +outlive our past; its sorrows we may forget, its wrongs we may forgive, +we may even smile at its crushed hopes, ambitions and loves with +scarcely a tinge of bitterness; but that which we have been stings us +ever with the burning pain of an undying remorse. It is not what we +have done which awakens our deepest self-scorn; it is the fact that we +were this which made it possible for us to do it. To feel that he had +been capable of the cruelty of abandoning his betrothed and of wounding +his closest friend, merely from a groundless suspicion, was to Grant +Herman a pain never to be wholly outlived. + +Nor was he without a teasing pain, through a less noble trait in his +nature, from the consciousness that he had loved Ninitta. Once the +fires of love have burned out, any mortal is apt to be lost in amazed +wonderment how they were ever kindled; and that it was hard for Grant +Herman, at thirty-five, to understand how Grant Herman, at +twenty-seven, could have adored an Italian peasant model is not so +without precedent as to be wholly incomprehensible. + +Ninitta had been a good girl, his thoughts ran, was doubtless so still; +her figure was enchanting, he would have been no sculptor had he failed +to appreciate that; he had been a boy, a foolish youngster to be +dizzied by a rushing of the blood to his head; but to make her his wife +now---- + +"Ninitta," he said, suddenly, breaking off from his thoughts into +words, "I am not well to-day: come to-morrow. Are you comfortably +settled in town? Do you need money?" + +"No," she answered, rising, "I do not want money." + +She went slowly down the studio without further word, only turning back +as she passed Bently's picture for which she had posed, and which had +been brought for the meeting of the Pagans. + +"You have seen," she said, "I am able to earn. I have learned much +while I was bringing you that letter. Across the world is a long way. +No; I have no need of money." + + + + +VII. + +IN WAY OF TASTE. + Troilus and Cressida; iii.--3. + + +Grant Herman's studio, in which the Pagans met that night, was in +its way no less unique than the company there gathered. It was a +great, misshapen place, narrow, half a hundred feet long, and +disproportionately high, with undressed brick walls and cement floor. +The upper half of one of the end walls was taken up with large windows, +before which were drawn dingy curtains. Here and there about the place +were scattered modeling stands, water tanks mounted upon rude tripods, +casts, and the usual lumber of a sculptor's studio; while upon the +walls were stuck pictures, sketches, and reproductions in all sorts of +capricious groupings. + +In one corner a flight of stairs led to a gallery high up against the +wall, over the rude railing of which looked the heads of a couple of +legless statues. From this gallery the stairs continued to ascend until +a door near the roof was reached, leading to unknown regions well up in +the building behind which the studio had been built as an afterthought. +On shelves were confusedly disposed dusty bits of bronze, plaster, +coarse pottery and rare glass; things valueless and things beyond price +standing in careless fellowship. A canvas of Corot looked down upon a +grotesque, grimacing Japanese idol, a beautiful bronze reproduction of +a vase by Michael Angelo stood shoulder to shoulder with a bean-pot +full of tobacco; a crumpled cravat was thrown carelessly over the arm +of a dancing faun, while a cluster of Barye's matchless animals were +apparently making their way with great difficulty through a collection +of pipes, broken modeling tools, faded flowers and loose papers. Every +where it was evident that the studio of Herman differed from heaven in +at least its first law. + +Quite in keeping with the picturesque, richly stored room, was the +group of men walking about the place or seated near the rough table +upon which refreshments were placed. On this table were a couple of +splendid punch-bowls of antique cut glass, which, if not full now, had +unmistakable marks of having been so earlier in the evening. A coarse +dish of yellow earthen ware beside them held an ample supply of +biscuits, and was in turn flanked by a couple of plates of cheese. +Fruit, beer, and tobacco in various forms, with abundant glasses and +pipes, completed the furnishing of the board, upon which a newspaper +supplied the place of a cloth. + +Tom Bently's long, shapely limbs were disposed in a big easy-chair by +the table, his tongue being just now employed in one of his not +infrequent harangues upon art, his remarks being plentifully spiced +with profanity. + +"Whatever crazy ideas on art," Bently was saying, "aren't good for any +thing else have to be put into a book. The surest recommendation in art +circles is getting out a book or giving a rubbishy lecture. Every woman +who has painted a few bunches of flowers or daubed a little pottery, +writes a book to tell how she did it; as if it were the most +astonishing thing in the world." + +"Women are very like hens," interpolated Fenton; "they always cackle +most over the smallest egg." + +"If any one of the crew," continued Bently, "could appreciate a +fiftieth part of the suggestions in a single sketch of an old master, +she might have something to write about." + +"But then she would know enough to keep still," said Rangely. + +"Oh, a woman never knows enough to keep still," Bently retorted. "It is +damned amusing to hear the average American----" + +A chorus of protestations arose. + +"We'll have nothing about the 'Average American,' Bently!" + +"Start somebody else on his hobby," suggested Ainsworth; "that's the +only way to choke Bently off. Where's Fenton? I never knew him quiet +for so long in my life." + +Arthur had been watching his companions and smoking in silence. He +smiled brilliantly at Ainsworth's challenge. + +"I'm overwhelmed by Bently's oaths," he said. "He outdoes himself +to-night." + +"When it comes time for Tom's epitaph," observed Rangely, "I shall +suggest that it be a dash." + +"Why do you swear so?" inquired Ainsworth. "Don't you think it in +execrable taste?" + +"Taste?" laughed Bently. "Yes; it's so far above all taste as to be +a--sight higher and bigger." + +"I make a distinction," Herman put in good naturedly, "between swearing +and blasphemy; and Tom never blasphemes. His cursing is all in the +interest of the highest virtues." + +"Profanity is like smoking," added Tom. "Every thing depends upon how +you do it. The English, for instance, smoke for the brutality of the +thing; they never have any of the French _finesse,_ and their +smoking is nothing less than a crime. But as the Arabs smoke it is one +of the loftiest virtues; there's something godlike about it. + +"It is from smoking," Fenton chimed in, "that the Orientals learned how +to treat women; for a woman is like tobacco, the aroma should be +enjoyed and the ashes thrown away." + +"By George!" exclaimed one of the Pagans, moved by some rare +compunction to remember that he had a wife at home, "that's infamous, +Arthur." + +"It is my belief," observed Ainsworth deliberately, "that Fenton lies +awake nights to invent beastly things to say about women, and when he +gets something that he thinks is smart he throws it into the +conversation any where, without the slightest regard to whether it fits +or not." + +"What makes you so bitter against women?" asked Bently. + +"Yes," added Rangely, with mock deprecation. "Why do you want to +annihilate the sex? What harm have women ever done to you?" + +"Oh," retorted the artist, "it is on theoretical principles, purely. I +adore that masculine ideal which man calls woman, but only finds in his +brain. The highest on earth is reached only by the absolute elimination +of the feminine. Ah! man is at his best in war," he went on, his +attitude becoming less studied and more forcible, as he allowed his +intellectual interest to overpower his vanity; "there he is all +masculine; man without the limitations that the presence of woman +imposes upon him. There woman is ignored, and even if she has been the +cause of the war--and to be the cause of war is woman's noblest +prerogative!--she is for the time being as completely forgotten as if +she had never existed. She slips into oblivion as does the horn of grog +which gives his courage." + +Fenton was in a mood when he fancied he was talking well, a conviction +which was not always an accurate measure of the real worth of his +remarks. He delighted in presenting half truths in forcible +phraseology, relishing the taste of an epigram quite without reference +to its verity. He amused himself and his friends with talk more or less +brilliant, of which no one knew better than himself the fallacy, but +whose cleverness atoned with him for all defects. The intellectual +excitement of giving free rein to his fancy and his tongue was +dangerously pleasant to Arthur, who often more than half convinced +himself of the verity of his extravagant theories, and oftener still +involved himself in their defense by yielding to the mere whim of +phrasing them effectively. + +"You are on your high horse to-night, Fenton," cried Rangely, "you make +no more of a metaphor than a racer of a hurdle." + +"Don't stop him," Ainsworth said. "Let him run the course out now he's +on the track." + +"When man comes into his kingdom," Fenton broke out again, too fully +aroused to mind the banter, yet with a sort of double consciousness +enjoying the absurdity of the whole conversation, "when man comes into +his kingdom, when we get to the perfection of the race, there will be +no women. The ultimate man will be masculine--men, only men; gloriously +and eternally masculine!" "But how will the race perpetuate itself?" +asked Tom in as matter of fact a tone as he might have inquired the +time of day. + +"Perpetuate itself!" blazed the other. "The race will not need to +perpetuate itself. The world will be peopled with gods! When once women +are gone the race will have become immortal!" + +A shout of mingled applause and derision greeted this outburst, amid +which Fenton threw himself back in a lounging chair and lighted a fresh +cigar. He was intoxicated with himself, and few draughts are more +dangerous. + +"Take to the lecture platform, Fenton," jeered Ainsworth. "You'll make +your mark in the world yet." + +"I wonder you stopped at immortality," remarked Fred Rangely. "You +usually go on to dispose of the future state." + +"Impossible," retorted the artist, "for you never heard me say I +believed in one." + +"That's a fact," confessed the other, "but you insist so emphatically +that women have no moral sense that your philosophy certainly would +dispose of them if it allow any future state." + +"For my part," declared Herman, "I've heard Fenton talk nonsense as +long as I want to; let's look at the pictures." + +An informal exhibition had been arranged, consisting of pictures loaned +by friends, and including several by members of the club. The most +important of the latter was a gypsy which Bently had just completed, +and which exhibited that artist's defects and excellences in the +emphatic manner usual with his productions. The _motif_ was better +than the _technique_, but Bently's splendid feeling for color +somehow carried him through, and made the picture not only striking but +rich and suggestive. + +"If you could learn to draw, Tom," Fenton said, as they stood looking +at it, "you'd be the biggest man in America." + +"Is that the new model you were talking about?" asked Rangely. + +"Yes," Bently answered. "Isn't she a stunner?" + +"I thought that shoulder was something new," put in Fenton. "The girl +poses well; trust a woman with shoulders like that to know how to +display them." + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Grant Herman in sudden and rare irritation, +"can you never have done slurring at women? Didn't you have a mother? +In heaven's name let some woman escape your tongue for her sake!" + +Such an outburst from their host produced a profound sensation upon the +Pagans. The most tolerant of men, he was accustomed to listen to their +wholesale denunciations of all things with a good natured smile, +contenting himself with a calm contradiction now and then. Proverbial +for his patience and good temper, he produced the greater sensation now +when he gave vent to his anger upon a subject which not only Fenton but +every guest present usually considered fair game. + +"I'm sorry I vexed you, Herman," Fenton said, turning to him after a +moment's silence, "but however much I've abused women, you never heard +me blackguard a woman in your life." + +"You are right," the sculptor replied, catching the other's slender +hand in his stalwart grasp. "I beg your pardon. I'm out of sorts, I +suppose, or I shouldn't be quarreling like a Christian. Let's brew a +new bowl and drink to Pagan harmony." + + + + +VIII. + +THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; ii.--7. + + +After the Pagans had separated that night Fred Rangely lingered in +Herman's studio. + +The sculptor somehow found it possible to be more frank with Rangely +than with any other of his companions, and although there was a +difference of some half a dozen in the count of their years, and +perhaps more in their ages as measured by experiences, Herman's strong +but naturally stormy nature found much pleasure in the calm philosophy +of his friend. + +Scarcely were the two men alone, when Rangely turned to his host and +demanded abruptly: + +"Now, I want to know, Grant, what in the devil is the matter with you +to-night? What set you out to pitch into Fenton so?" + +Herman poured out a glass of wine and swallowed it before replying. + +"Because I am a damned idiot!" he retorted savagely. "I'm all shaken +up, Fred; and the worst of it is that I don't see any way out of the +snare I'm in." + +"It isn't real trouble, I hope." + +"Isn't it! By Jove!" cried the sculptor, "the more honest a man is in +this world the worse off he is. If I hadn't had a conscience when I was +a young fellow, I should be all right now. Who is it--Fenton?--that is +always saying that he asks forgiveness for his virtues and thanks the +gods for every vice he can cultivate?" + +"Well," Rangely remarked, filling a pipe, and curiously surveying his +companion, who was raging up and down the studio, "you don't seem to be +in an especially cheerful and enlivening frame of mind; that's a fact. +If a fellow can be of any help, call on; if not, at least try to take +it a little more gently for the sake of your friends." + +"Do any thing?" retorted the other. "No; there's nothing to be done. +I'm a fool." + +"Even that disease has been remedied before now," Rangely said coolly; +"though usually experience and time are necessary to the cure." + +"I'll tell you the whole story," Herman exclaimed, flinging himself +into a chair. "It is all simple enough. It is always simple enough to +tangle things up so that Lucifer himself cannot unsnarl them. When I +was in Rome I was in love--crazily, gushingly in love, you understand, +like a big schoolboy--with a girl I found in Capri. She was a good +little thing, with a figure like Helen's; that's what did the business +for me. I coaxed her to Rome to be my model, and then that infernal +conscience of mine made me ask her to marry me. I could have done any +thing I liked with her; I knew that; she had nobody to look after her +but a half sister who paid about as much attention to her as if she had +been a grasshopper. But the infernal New England Puritanism in my blood +wouldn't let me hurt her." + +"And somebody else wasn't so scrupulous?" asked the listener as his +friend paused in his story. + +"You think so?" returned Herman eagerly. "Then I wasn't so unutterably +a scoundrel for thinking so, too, was I? I did doubt her; I had reason +to. She posed for a friend of mine, a painter; you know, of course--Hang +it! What's the use of going into all the details. I was poor as a +church mouse or she shouldn't have done it at all, even for him. The +gist of the story is that I was jealous and flew out at both of them, +and left Rome in a rage!" + +The two men sat in silence for some moments. Rangely puffed vigorously +at his pipe, while his companion stared savagely into the shadows in +the further end of the studio. Neither looked at the other; the hearer +appreciated too well the shame-facedness by which these unusual +confidences must be accompanied. From some distant steeple a clock was +faintly heard striking two. + +"And to-day," Herman at length began again in an altered voice, "to-day +she came here. She has followed me all these years, going through +heaven knows what experiences and hardships, to bring me the proof that +I was a madman blinded by groundless jealousy, and that instead of +being wronged I cursedly abused both her and poor dead old Hoffmeir." + +Again there came an interval of silence. A lamp flickered and went out +with a muffled sound. The thoughts of both men were of that formless +character scarcely to be distinguished from emotions; on the one hand +sad and remorseful, on the other sympathetic and pitiful. + +"Well?" Rangely ventured after a time. + +"But what shall I do?" demanded Herman. "I cannot marry her." + +"No, of course not. She cannot expect it after banging about the +world." + +"Oh, it isn't that," the other said hastily. "She is as good and as +pure as when I left her; at least I believe so. And she does expect +it." + +"She does expect it!" echoed his friend. "Ah!" + +The reception of a confidence is a most delicate ordeal through which +few people come unscathed. Rare individuals are born with the ready +sympathies, quick apprehension, and exquisite tact needful; but the +vast majority are sure to wound their friends if the latter ever +venture to approach with their armor of reticence laid wholly aside. + +Although perhaps not the ideal confidant, Rangely was sympathetic and +possessed of at least sufficient discretion to avoid comment until he +knew the whole situation and was sure that his opinion was desired. He +was still unable fully to understand his friend's agitation, the task +of disposing of an old sweetheart in so inferior a position not +appearing to his easy-going nature a matter sufficiently difficult to +warrant so deep disquiet. + +Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he +was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most +secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a +savage sense of doing penance by the self-inflicted torture. + +"Yes," he repeated, "she expects it. Why shouldn't she, poor thing? She +has not changed, and she does not understand that I may have altered." + +"And you have?" + +Grant Herman looked up and down the great studio, now growing dusky +from the burning out of candles here and there. An antique lamp which +was lighted only on special occasions stood where the breeze came to it +from the high window, and the flame, wind-swept, smoked and flared. +Through the silence the listener's ear could detect a faint sound of +the tide washing against the piles of the wharf outside. + +The sculptor started up suddenly and stood firmly, throwing back his +splendid head and shoulders, and looking straight into the eyes of his +friend. + +"Yes," he said in a clear, low voice. "I have changed. I---There is +some one else." + +"Life," remarked Rangely, with seeming irrelevancy, "life is a +fallacy." + +"I'd like to be honorable," Herman continued, "but how can I? It is +impossible to be honest to both her and myself. If I hadn't had any +scruples, then---Bah! What a beast I am! Poor Ninitta." + +Still Rangely smoked in silence, and the sculptor went on again. + +"It has always been my creed that when a man has allowed a woman to +love him--much more, made her love him, as I did--he is a black-hearted +knave to let a change in himself wreck her happiness. Now I am put to +the test." + +"And the other one?" asked Rangely. "Does she know that you care for +her?" + +"I have never said so to her. Heaven only knows how much she feels by +intuition. A man always fancies that the woman he loves can tell." + +"That may depend something on how often you see her." "I see her +nearly every day. She is my pupil." + +"Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Yes," Herman said, a little defiantly, as if now the secret was told +he challenged the right of another man to share it. + +"Is she a widow?" + +"Yes," the other answered, with no perceptible pause, and yet between +the question and his reply had come to him the swift remembrance that +he really knew nothing of his pupil's life or history, and had simply +taken it for granted that her husband was not living. "Arthur Fenton +brought her here," he added, rather thinking aloud than answering any +point of Rangely's query. "He was an old friend of her husband." + +"But what will you do with the other?" + +Instead of replying Herman got up from the seat into which he had flung +himself, and went about the studio putting out the lights. + +"Go home," he said with a whimsical smile. "I'm sure I don't know what +we are talking about at this time of the morning. As for what I shall +do--Well, time will show; I am as ignorant as yourself on the subject." + + + + +IX. + +VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE. + Comedy of Errors; ii.--i. + + +It suited Fenton's whim next morning to dine with Mrs. Greyson. He had +established the habit of dropping in when he chose, always sure of a +welcome, and always sure, too, of a listener to the tirades in which he +was fond of indulging. If Helen did not always accord him agreement, +she at least gave attention, and he cared rather to talk than to +convince. + +His aesthetic taste, moreover, was gratified by the pretty breakfast +table; and he was not without a subtle sense of pleasure in the beauty +and harmonious dress of his hostess, who possessed the rare charm of +contriving to be always well attired. This morning she wore a gown of +russet cashmere with here and there knots of dull gold ribbon, which +tint formed a pleasing link between the stuff and the color of her +clear skin. + +"It is good of you to come," she said, as she poured his coffee. "There +are so few days left before you will have married a wife and cannot +come. I shall miss you very much." + +"Why do you persist in talking in that way?" + +Fenton returned. "I'm not going out of the country or out of the world. +You could not take a more absolute farewell if I were about to be +cremated." + +"You do not know," replied she, smiling. "However, I am glad you are to +be married. It will do you good. You need a wife, if you do dread +matrimony so much." + +"It is abominable," he observed deliberately, "to talk as I do. Of +course I do not mind what you choose to think of me; or rather I am +sure you will not misunderstand." + +"I do not," Mrs. Greyson interpolated significantly. + + "But it seems a reflection upon Miss Caldwell," he continued, +answering her interruption only by a grimace, "for me to discourse of +marriage just as I do. It isn't because I'm not fond of her. It is my +protest against the absurd and false way in which society regards +marriage; in a word against marriage itself." + +Mrs. Greyson understood Arthur Fenton as well as any woman can +understand a man who is her friend. Her friendship softened the +harshness of her judgments, but she could not be blind to his vanity, +his constant efforts at self-deception, and so far as she was in +possession of the facts, she reasoned correctly in regard to his +approaching marriage. + +"No," she said calmly, "it isn't even that. You talk partly for the +sake of saying things that sound effective, and partly because you are +morbid from over introspection. If you were vicious, I should say you +did it as an atonement. Many people would not understand you, but as +I do, it is harmless for you to talk to me." + +"Introspective? Of course. Can any body help being that in this age? +And as for being morbid--it all depends upon definitions. I try to be +honest with myself." + +"The subtlest form of hypocrisy," she answered, "often consists in what +we call being honest with ourselves. I gave that up long ago. You are +not honest with yourself about this marriage. If you don't wish to +marry Miss Caldwell, who forces you to do so?" + +"Forces me to? Good heavens! I do wish to marry her. Of course I don't +ever expect to be perfectly happy. In this inexplicable world natures +that demand that every thing shall be explained must necessarily remain +unsatisfied. Still, I'd take a little more coffee as a palliation of my +lot, if you please." + +"It is well you are to marry," observed Helen, refilling his cup. +"You've concentrated your attention upon yourself too long." + +"But I am afraid of poverty. If I find some old Boston duffer with a +lot of money, and can fool him into admiring the frame of one of my +pictures, he may buy it, and I can pay the butcher, the baker and the +gas man for a week. If I can't, I must daub the canvas a little higher +and try the same game in New York, and--" + +"Rubbish!" she interrupted. "The difficulty is, you are too +self-indulgent. You are too much afraid of the little discomforts." + +"No," he answered; "men--at least sensitive men--do not suffer so much +from the discomforts of poverty as from its indignities." + +"If--" began Helen; but without finishing, she rose from the table, +went to the window and stood looking out. + +Fenton watched her idly, knowing perfectly that the woman before him +was capable of sacrificing for him all the little income which was +her's; and he wondered, as men will, how deep her feeling for him had +really become, and whether it had ever passed that mysterious and +undefinable line which separates love from friendship. + +Helen had often endeavored to assist the artist out of some financial +difficulty by buying one of his unsellable pictures, a pretext which he +had the grace to put aside by refusing to sell, sometimes sending her +as a gift precisely the work for which he could most easily find a +purchaser. There was continually a silent struggle, more or less +consciously carried on between the two, although seldom appearing upon +the surface. Too much Fenton's friend not to be pained by his +weaknesses, Helen was stung to the quick by a certain insincerity +which she often detected alike beneath his raillery and his cynicism. +Too noble to yield to any belief in a friend's unworthiness without +resistance, she suffered anew whenever his words seemed to ring false, +and now there were tears in her eyes as she looked out into the sunny +street. She pressed them firmly back, however, and turned a calm face +towards her guest, who sat playing with his spoon and watching her with +a half troubled, half amused expression. + +"I've composed my epitaph," he said irrelevantly. "Will you please +compose my monument." + +"Oh, willingly. But it will be necessary to know the epitaph, so that +the monument may express the same sentiment." + +"I shall have no name," Arthur returned. "Only-- + _L'homme est mort. Soit_. +How does that strike you?" + +"Ah," she cried impulsively, "how does any thing strike me? You play at +being wretched as sentimental school girls do, when in their case it is +slate pencils and pickled limes and in your case it is vanity. If you +were half as miserable as you pretend, you'd have blown your brains out +long ago, or deemed yourself the veriest craven alive. I've no patience +with such attitudinizing." + +"You are partly right," he admitted, "but do any of us find the savor +of life so sweet as to make it worth while?" + +Something in his voice, a ring of what might be pity in his tone, +humiliated Helen. She suspected that he thought her outburst arose from +a too great fondness for himself, for grief at parting and at giving +him up to another. She struggled to regain her calmness; she felt the +impossibility of contradicting the belief which she was sure existed in +his mind; she was conscious that to say, "I do not love you," would +appear to him proof incontrovertible that the reverse was true. Her +throat contracted painfully and she cast down her eyes lest the tears +in them should be seen. + +"The Caffres," Fenton continued, after an instant's pause, "are said to +be so fond of sugar that they will eat a handful of sand rather than +lose a grain or two that has fallen to the ground; it seems to me life +is the sand and joy in the proportion of the sugar. I'm not willing to +take the sand, and I protest against it. There is no morality in it." + +"There is no morality in any thing but death," Helen returned drearily. + +"Death!" echoed Fenton. "Do you call that moral! Death that crushes the +emotions, that kills the passions, that pollutes the flesh; the monster +which debauches all that is sacred in the physical, that degrades to +the level of the lowest all that is high in the intellectual--is this +your idea of the moral? The coarsest rioting of sensual life is sacred +beside it. Death moral? _Mon Dieu_, Helen, how you do abuse +terms!" + +Fenton was continually treading upon the dangerous edge between pathos +and bathos, between impressiveness and absurdity. Had he not possessed +extremely sensitive perceptions which enabled him to judge swiftly and +exactly of the effect of his declamations, and the keenest sense of the +ludicrous that helped him to turn into ridicule whatever could not be +made to pass for earnest, much of his extravagant talk would have +excited amusement and, not impossibly, contempt, instead of producing +the half serious effect he desired. He could impart a vast air of +sincerity to his speech, moreover, and could even for the moment be +sincere. In the present case his earnest and real feeling saved this +outburst from the somewhat theatrical air which the words might easily +have had if spoken at all artificially. + +"The history of mankind," went on the artist, in a sort of two-fold +consciousness, deeply feeling on the one hand what he was saying, but +on the other endeavoring to direct the conversation to generalities in +which would be lost the dangerous personal remarks which threatened, +"the whole history of mankind is a protest against death as an insult, +an outrage. All religions are only mankind's defiance of death more or +less largely phrased." + +"No," Helen said. "Not our defiance; our confession of a craven fear. I +am afraid of death. I don't dare take my life." + +"We are talking," responded her companion, in his turn leaving the +table and approaching the window, "like a couple of unmitigated ghouls. +I acknowledge your right to put aside your life if it bores you; man +has at least that one inalienable right. But why should you? Art is +left still." + +"Art," she repeated with profound sadness; "yes, but a woman is never +content with abstractions. She demands something more definite. And, by +the way, Will came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes! What did he want?" + +"He said he only came to see how I was. I think he recognizes that now +he has come from Europe our secret is sure to leak out soon, and is +looking the ground over to see how it is best to behave. He was very +entertaining; I never enjoyed him more thoroughly." + +"He's a model husband," Fenton observed thoughtfully. "As well as you +like each other, I'll be hanged if I can see why you don't live like +other people." + +"It is precisely because we don't live like other people," was the +reply, "that we do like each other so well. We are the best of friends; +we were the worst possible husband and wife. I hated him officially, +and---There! Why must you bring all that up again? Let the dead past +bury its dead." + +"But the past won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a +persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly +disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll +caricature might be made on that line? Time as a decrepit old sexton, +you know." + +"So few people can joke on those subjects that it would appeal to a +very limited audience, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, that's true of every thing that is good for any thing." + +"Unfortunately the converse is not true, for every thing appealing to a +small audience is by no means good." + +"Not even marriage?" + +"Still harping on matrimony," said Helen, laughing. "What will you do +after the knot is really tied? You speak in the mournful tone of one +who reads _'Lasciate ogni speranza'_ upon his wedding horseshoe." + +"Oh, not quite," he laughed back, "for after marriage a man can always +amuse himself, you know, by looking at any woman he may meet and +fancying how much worse off he might be if he had married her instead +of his wife." + +"Well," Helen remarked, turning, "your conversation is amusing and +doubtless deeply instructive, but I must go to the studio. My +bas-relief will hardly complete itself, I suppose, and I've a splendid +offer for it, to decorate a house in Milton. It is to be paneled into +the side of an oak stairway at the back of the main hall. Isn't that +fine?" + + + + +X. + +O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT. + Hamlet; i.--5. + + +Anomalies are doubtless as truly the product of law as results whose +logic is evident, and the strange relations between Mrs. Greyson and +her husband were therefore to be considered the outcome of fixed causes +from which no other result was possible. + +Married when scarcely more than a girl, shy, undeveloped and ignorant +of the world, Helen came from a secluded life, which had been pretty +equally divided between the library of her dead father and the woods +surrounding the country village where she lived. She had never even +fancied that she loved Dr. Ashton; but she had married him as she would +have obeyed any other command of the stern aunt who had presided +severely over her orphaned childhood. He, half-a-dozen years her +senior, had been enamored of her wonderful beauty and modest +intellectuality; and, being accustomed always to gratify the impulse of +the moment, he had married her with a precipitancy as characteristic as +it was reckless. It was owing to a certain mutual scorn of +conventionalities that Helen and her husband at length decided to +separate. Without the aid of the law and without scandal, they settled +back into single liberty, the wife taking again her father's name. They +had spent their married life abroad, where Dr. Ashton had remained +until a short time previous to the opening of our story, and as neither +husband nor wife had been in their single life known in Boston, and as +Helen was chary of new acquaintances, their relations had thus far +remained undiscovered. Helen, at least, recognized how improbable it +was that this secrecy would long remain inviolate, but she went quietly +on her way, letting events take their own course. + +Arthur Fenton was an old friend of her husband whom Helen had met in +Europe, but had known intimately only during her Boston life. She had +found him sympathetic, responsive and entertaining, and as any lonely +woman clings to the companionship of an appreciative man, she had clung +to the friendship and comradeship of the artist. + +Going across the Common towards the studio on this sunny morning, when +the air was brisk and bracing, the naked trees clearly and delicately +defined against the sky, Helen's thoughts went back to her past; to her +shy, secluded girlhood, to the years of her married life, and to the +way in which she had been living since she and her husband parted. She +reflected with a smile, half pity, half contempt, of the proud, +reticent girl who had pored over books and drawings in the musty, +deserted library at home, almost wondering if she were the same being. +She looked from the Joy Street mall across the hollow which holds the +Frog Pond, the most charming view on the Common, yet not even the +golden sparkle of the water or the beautiful line of the slope beyond +could chase from her mind the picture of the high, dim old room, lined +to the ceiling with book-shelves, dingy and dusty from neglect. She +seemed to hear still the weird tapping of the beech-tree boughs against +the tall narrow windows, and still to smell odor of old leather; she +remembered vividly the dull dizziness that came from stooping too long +over some volume too heavy to hold, above which, half lying upon the +carpetless floor, she had bent with drooping golden curls. She +remembered, too, the remoteness of the real world from the ideal sphere +in which her fancy placed her; how unimportant and unsubstantial to her +had appeared the events of daily life as compared with the incidents of +the world the old books in the musty library opened to her. The life of +these magic tomes was the real, and that humdrum state through which +her visible pathway lay was the dream. To the imaginative girl, half +child, half poet, her marriage had prospectively seemed merely an +accident of the trivial outside existence which surrounded without +penetrating her true being; and the sharpness of the rude awakening +from this childish misconception still pierced the woman's proud soul. + +No woman recalls her childhood without regret, and despite the +philosophy she had cultivated, Helen felt a deep sadness as the old +days, somber and dull though they had been, rose before her. She +hurried her step a little as if to escape her past, when a pleasant +voice at her elbow said: + +"Good morning, Helen. Upon what wickedness are you bent now. You go too +fast to be on a good errand." + +"Good morning, Will," she answered, without turning, for the voice +brought the speaker before her mental vision as plainly as her eyes +could have done. "I was just thinking of you, and of the days when you +found me at home." + +"Yes," responded Dr. Ashton, "what were you thinking of them?" + +"Nothing very pleasant," she answered with a sigh. "What a gorgeous day +it is. Arthur has been breakfasting with me." + +"Arthur is going to be married," remarked her companion good humoredly. +"I've just been out to buy him a wedding present." + +"What is it?" + +"Oh, something he chose himself. It is not safe to tell you, though." + +"Haven't I proved my discretion?" Helen said lightly. "I thought that +by this time you'd be willing to trust me with your most deadly +secrets." + +"This is a deadly secret, indeed," he returned, taking from his pocket +a small morocco case. + +"Oh, jewelry," Helen said, with an accent of disappointment. "I should +never have suspected you of such commonplaceness, Will." + +"Not jewelry; a jewel," retorted Dr. Ashton, opening the case and +displaying a tiny vial. + +"Will!" Helen exclaimed, stopping suddenly and catching her husband by +the arm, "you won't give him that?" + +"Why not? I promised him long ago that I'd get it for him, and he +particularly asked for it as a wedding gift." + +"Oh, Will; don't do it! He'll use it sometime when he's blue; he'll----" + +"Nonsense," responded the physician, restoring the case to his pocket. +"I've diagnosed his case perfectly. He isn't very robust, he's +infernally sensitive, and he's no end morbid. He fancies he may want to +kill himself, and I dare say he will have leanings that way. Most of us +do. He has wanted to a good many times before now, and he is likely to +again, but he won't do it. He's too soft-hearted. He might get up steam +enough as far as courage goes, but he'd never forget other people and +their opinion. He couldn't bear to hurt others, and still less could he +bear the idea of their blaming him. He is precisely the man who cannot +take his own life." + +"But what puts it into his head just now? Why should he marry if he +dreads it so?" + +"It is all of a piece with his morbidness. He is really in love with +Miss Caldwell, I think, but he has brooded over the matter as he broods +over every thing, and seeing the uncertain nature of matrimony, he like +a wise man provides for contingencies. There may be something behind +that I don't know of, but I think not. He'll feel easier if he has +this, and I am honestly doing him a favor, if it isn't in the way he +thinks." + +"I do not know," persisted Helen, "but I do wish you wouldn't do it. +How would his bride feel if she knew?" + +"I don't know her," Dr. Ashton returned coolly, "so of course I can't +tell how sensible she is; but in any case I can trust Arthur's +discretion." + +"She's orthodox," said Helen, "or, no, I think she is not so bad as +that; but she would regard the idea of suicide as unspeakably wicked. +At least I think so; I never saw her but once. Oh, I do hate to have +Arthur marry her. It's dreadful!" + +"Of course; it's dreadful to think of any man's marrying, for that +matter," he returned with a smile, "but he is a man who was sure to do +it sooner or later." + +"He's a man of so much principle," Helen mused, half aloud. + +"Principle," sneered her companion laughingly, "principle is only +formulated policy." + +"I am dreadfully tired of epigrams," sighed Helen as they walked down +West street. "Whether Arthur learned the habit of you or you of him I +don't know; but the pair of you are enough to corrupt all Boston. I do +wish you'd give me that case. I'm sure I need it far more than Arthur +does. He's going to be married, his pictures are praised and are +beginning to sell, he has life before him and every thing to live for, +while I have nothing." + +"Life is before you, too," answered her husband gravely, putting his +hand upon her arm to prevent her flying under the wheels of a carriage +which in her absorption she had not noticed. "Look here, Helen; it +wouldn't be any better if Arthur wanted to marry you. You are too +melancholy alone without having him to push you deeper into the slough +of despond." + +"You are mistaken, Will," was the quiet response. "I am fond of Arthur, +very fond, indeed; but not in that way. I am a fool to grieve about his +marriage; I own that, though after all I've lived through I ought to be +too hardened to care. But you must acknowledge that it isn't very +pleasant for me to see him deliberately going away to marry a woman who +would consider me a Bohemian, and very likely anything but respectable, +because you and I choose to be comfortable apart instead of miserable +together. If I were not so utterly alone in the world, losing a friend +would not be so great a matter, perhaps; but he is all I have now, +Will." + +"It is hard, old lady; that's a fact. I wish I could straighten things +out for you, but I don't see how I can." + +"No," Helen said drearily, "nobody can." + + + + +XI. + +WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED. + Comedy of Errors; i.--I. + + +Upon entering the small studio where her bas-relief stood, Helen found +Herman there before her. He had removed the wet cloths from the clay +and was examining the work with close attention. + +"You need a model for this figure," he said, indicating the month of +May. "You must take that turn of the shoulder from nothing but life." + +Helen came and stood beside him, looking at the work. The instinct of +the artist for the moment superseded all other feelings in her mind, +and she forgot alike her own troubles and the ill-omened gift with +which her husband purposed remembering the nuptials of her friend. + +The figure of May of which Herman spoke was that of a beautiful young +girl casting backward a wistful look at the fallen flowers which she +had dropped but might not stay to gather up again. The splendid +movement of the youthful figure, thrown forward in her running, but +with one shoulder turned toward the spectator, so that the upper +portion of the beautiful bosom was seen, formed one of the finest +details of the composition. + +"Yes," the sculptor said again, "you must have a model for that, and I +have one coming this morning. To be honest, I came up here hoping you'd +need her. I believe she is a good girl, and I do not like the idea of +her being about among the studios." + +He went on to speak of the figure, adding suggestions of treatment, +feeling and posing; and as he talked he was conscious of needlessly +prolonging the conversation for the mere pleasure of being near this +woman, and of secretly cherishing some vague feeling that not only +would Ninitta be safe under Mrs. Greyson's guardianship, but that some +solution of the complexities in which he found himself involved would +result from bringing together the two women so closely connected with +his life. + +He went away into his own studio at length, but Helen had scarcely got +fairly to work before he reappeared with Ninitta. + +Ninitta was much the same in outward appearance as upon the previous +day, but between this morning's mental state and that of yesterday +there was a great gulf. The Italian's character was a strange if not +wholly unique mixture of simplicity and worldly wisdom. All her +experiences, her life as a model in various parts of the world, her +hardships and successes, while teaching her only too sharply the +follies and vices of mankind, had never for an instant shaken her faith +in Grant Herman. He was her god. It is even doubtful if any thing he +could have done would have destroyed her belief in his integrity and +nobility of soul. When he left her, she acquiesced, it is true, but +with a wild passion of anguish. She knew he misjudged, but she chose to +phrase it to herself that he was deceived; his rashness and +hot-headedness were to her only so many fresh evidences of his +greatness of character. She was not the first woman who has vaguely felt +that unreasoning jealousy and passion are admirable or even +essential attributes of virility, and who has worshiped a man as much +for his faults as for his virtues. + +To the dream of meeting Herman with the proofs that he had been +deceived, Ninitta had clung unyieldingly through the dreary years since +the death of Hoffmeir, who had been kind to her for the sake of his +shattered friendship with Herman, and for the sake, too, of his own +hopeless love for herself. It was from mingled shyness and pride that +Ninitta had waited for a summons from the sculptor after she had +reached Boston; but when she had at last gone to his studio it was with +keen emotion. She had not considered that both herself and her old-time +lover had changed in the seven years of separation. She had not +reflected that believing her false he could not but have endeavored to +forget her. She could not know that contact with the world, if it had +not made him ashamed of his youthful enthusiasm, had at least showed +him how the marriage he had contemplated would have appeared in the +eyes of worldly wisdom, and had so educated him that reason was less +helpless before passion than of old. + +But to-day Ninitta was a different woman, changed by the agony of a +night into which had been compressed the bitterness of years. She had +been too sharply wounded at being greeted by a hand-shake in place of +the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead +of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations +between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the +alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a +knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far +keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. +Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her sex stood her +in good stead. She was convinced that some other woman had won the +sculptor's love from her. When she came into Helen's studio this +morning she watched sharply for some token which should show her the +relations in which the two artists stood to each other; but she could +detect nothing significant. Mrs. Greyson was intent only upon her work, +and whatever the sculptor may have felt at the meeting of Helen and +Ninitta, he made no outward sign. + +The model showed a quickness of comprehension in taking the pose +required, and the shoulder she bared was of so exquisite mold that +Helen's keenest artistic powers were aroused. Ninitta understood the +art of posing as a painter knows the use of brush and colors; she had +for it an inborn capacity impossible except in the child of an art +land. Moved by the inspiration of that most beautiful bust, Mrs. +Greyson worked enthusiastically, scarcely noticing when her master left +the room, an indication of indifference which the model did not fail to +note. + + + + +XII. + +WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur +Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and +it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The +sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit +her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend +with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to +care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a +small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she +declined being hampered by a chaperon. + +"My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to +come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be +an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I +suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more." + +On the present occasion Arthur Fenton asked leave to light his cigar, +and although Herman felt this something of a profanation, it was not +long before he and Rangely added their wreaths to the smoke garlands +which hung upon the air, and had not the hostess become somewhat +accustomed to tobacco in foreign _ateliers,_ it is to be doubted +if she could have complacently endured the fumes which arose. + +All subjects of heaven and earth came drifting into the talk, and at +length something evoked from Rangely his opinion of Emerson. + +"Emerson was great," he said, "Emerson often recalled Goethe in +Goethe's cooler and more intellectual moods; but Emerson lacked the +loftiness of vice; he was eternally narrow." + +"'The loftiness of vice,'" echoed the hostess. "What does that mean? It +sounds vicious enough." + +"Emerson," Rangely returned, "knew only half of life. He never had any +conception of the passionate longing for vice _per se;_ the +thrill, the glow which comes to some men at the splendid caress of sin +in her most horrible shape. Do you see what I mean? He couldn't imagine +the ecstasy that may lie in mere foulness." + +"No," replied Helen, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. Though I am sure I +ought to be shocked. Do you mean that he should have been vicious?" + +"Certainly not; but it was his limitation not to be tempted; not to be +able to project himself into a personality which riots in wickedness +far more intensely than a saint follows righteousness." + +"If you mean that he could not have been wicked if he tried, that, I +own, was in a sense a limitation." + +"Yes; and a fatal one. No man can be wholly great who understands only +one half of human impulses." + +"But what do you mean by wickedness?" demanded Herman, a little +combatively. + +"Oh," laughed Rangely, "I'm not to be entrapped into giving +metaphysical and theological definitions. I mean what we are expected +to call wickedness, conventionally speaking. I've an old cad of a +parson in my new play and I am trying to decide if it will do to have +him advocate a grand scheme for reforming the world by reversing +definitions and calling those things men choose to do virtues, and +dubbing whatever man detests, vices." + +"That is rather more clever than orthodox," Helen laughed. "How is your +play getting on, Mr. Rangely?" + +"Oh, fairish, thank you. The trouble is that the drama went out of +fashion long ago. First they replaced it by dresses and scenery, but +now every thing has given way to souvenir programmes; so I've got to +write up to a souvenir or I sha'n't make any thing out of the play." + +"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations." + +"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three +successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to +proper art levels." + +Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and +regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet, +scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's +thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his +favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler +than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated +pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with +little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings. + +"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom +he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more +melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he +has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson +watches him." + +Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen +observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent. +She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more +intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully, +although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what +was passing in the mind of her silent friend. + +"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He +is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an +unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like +him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently +selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that +she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the +other side; I am sure I hope so." + +She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes +met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine +fibers to knit people together. + +The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had +expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition. + +"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is +bow-legged!" + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe +from you for the whole evening." + +"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has +probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall +have something wild directly." + +"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising, +"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air +with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades +smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on +principle." + +He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to +lead her to the instrument. + +"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her +guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas +lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like +to be looked at too keenly when I sing." + +The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft +chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs. +Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come, +and he never forgot the thrill of that experience. + +An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the +singer. + +Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she +sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The +words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_ + + +I strew these opiate flowers +On thy restless pillow,-- +They were plucked from Orient bowers, +By the Indian billow. +Be thy sleep +Calm and deep, +Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep. + +Away, unlovely dreams! +Away, false shapes of sleep! + +Be his, as Heaven seems, +Clear and bright and deep! +Soft as love and calm as death, +Sweet as summer night without a breath. + +Sleep! sleep! My song is laden +With the soul of slumber; +It was sung by a Samian maiden +Whose lover was of the number +Who now keep +That calm sleep +Whence none may wake; where none shall weep. + +I touch thy temples pale! +I breathe my soul on thee! +And could my prayers avail, +All my joy should be +Dead, and I would live to weep, +So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep! + + +It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The +strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful, +sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating, +passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was +a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct +appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each +as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a +confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him +honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It +was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which +made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before +hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his +being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been +moved with wonder and longing. + +Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of +the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho +singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved, +and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her +presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music +could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for +the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a +sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his +friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a +right to see. + + + + +XIII. + +THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART. + Macbeth; iv.--3. + + +A hush followed the conclusion of Mrs. Greyson's song. + +No one wished to speak what all felt, and when the silence was broken, +it was with talk of the poet rather than of the singer. To the singing +they came only by slow degrees, and over it, when at length their +admiration found speech, they passed lightly. + +One thing which seemed to be effected by the music was the awakening of +Fenton from his gloomy reverie. He began to talk in his most +extravagant and whimsical style, answering every question instantly, if +with no especial care concerning the relevancy of his replies. + +"What nonsense it is," he exclaimed, "to talk of any man's originating +any thing. Why, when even Adam couldn't be made without material, what +are we, his descendants, that we should hope to create? The authors of +this old wisdom that we revamp to-day copied somebody further back, and +those in turn put down what the masses felt; collected the foam which +gathered on the yeasty waves of their age. Every truth comes to the +people first if they could only recognize it when it comes. It is +evolved by the friction of the masses, just as a fire is set by the +rubbing together of tree-boughs in primeval forests, and the dusky +redman incontinently roasted in his uncontaminated innocence. The +longer I live the less faith I have that a man evolves any thing from +his inner consciousness. Fancies are only the lies of the mendacious +brain, which perceives one thing and declares to us another." + +"Go slow, Fenton," interrupted Herman, "you know our poor wits are apt +to be dazzled by too much brilliancy." + +"The age," Fenton rattled on, "blooms once into a great man as an aloe +into a crown of bloom." + +"Right in there," broke in Rangely, who longed for a share in the +conversation, "just consider how necessary it is that every art +producer shall be in sympathy with the human life about him. That he +should take the best wherever it is to be found. There's a miserable +sentiment about shutting one's self up in some dark corner, and +producing some tremendous thing. Don't you know how many New York and +Boston artists have gone to Europe and hermetically sealed themselves +up somewhere to ferment into greatness like a jug of cider turning into +vinegar in a farmer's cellar?" + +"That's what made Hunt such a big fellow," Herman interposed; "because +he took the good wherever it offered." + +"But that depends upon whether a man goes direct to Nature for +inspiration," declared Fenton, "or sets himself to get a living by +filching the good things his neighbors have won from her." + +"Hunt did go to nature; that is just where he was great." + +"I think," said Fred, laughingly, "that you will appreciate the mood in +which I once wrote a preface. I planned a great metaphysical and +philosophical work--I was a good deal younger than I am now--and the +preface was to be, 'As to the originality of these ideas, I have +nothing more to say than that I do not remember that they have ever +been printed with my name on the title-page.' Of course, after that +declaration, I felt at liberty to take any thing I wanted from any +where; but, unluckily, my book never got beyond the preface." + +"I'm glad you had the sense to stop there," declared Arthur. "I forgive +the preface, but I could never have forgiven the book." + +Helen rose from her seat at the piano and turned up the gas a little. +The effect for which the light had been lowered was secured, and it was +better, she recognized, to give to her singing a certain isolation, +which must be done before the conversation became so general that the +change from gloom to light would not be noticed. + +She wore that evening a gray silk with black lace, a slight turning +away showing the whiteness of her beautiful throat. Her jewels were +cats'-eyes. + +"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the +Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, +watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker. + +"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess +of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the +sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is +deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being +the true author of _'Sartor Resartus.'_" + +"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I +do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to +pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old +humbug! He was the sham _par excellence_ of the nineteenth +century, this century of shams." + +"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated +Herman, "even in shams." + +"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous +egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is +something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a +relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass +of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real +sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you +recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting +up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will +often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one? +that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the +letter?" + +"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly. +"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere." + +"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess +of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to +Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth +agreeably and effectively told. _Vive la fausseté!_" + +"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own +light," Herman observed, a little grimly. + +He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter, +apparently, did not feel the thrust. + +"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine +Pagan." + +"You are wrong in your idea," was Fenton's swift reply. "A true Pagan +must have a belief in some god to take from his shoulders the burden of +personal responsibility, or he cannot be joyous as a Pagan should. +However, to-night I make myself believe that I believe something, so it +comes to much the same thing." + +Helen turned and looked at him, attracted by some subtle quality in his +voice. + +He was sitting sidewise in his chair, holding an ivory paper-knife in +his slender fingers. His cheeks burned, his eyes were bright, his lips +red. He had shaken off the depression which oppressed him earlier in +the evening. An air of joyous, quivering excitement pervaded him. He +threw up his head with a characteristic gesture, and looked about him +like one who has conquered in some desperate conflict. + +"Come," the hostess said, wondering in what inward struggle he had come +off victor; "you promised to assist me with the coffee. I make no boast +of my house or my hospitality, gentlemen," she added, with a charming +glance around, "but I warn you in advance that not to admire my coffee +is to lose my friendship forever." + +In answer to her ring, a servant brought in a small mortar and a pretty +little bowl of whole coffee, delicately browned, and scarcely cold from +its roasting. Arthur, who seemed acquainted with Mrs. Greyson's methods +of procedure, began to pound the berries, roasted to perfect crispness, +in the ebony mortar, reducing them to an almost impalpable powder, +which diffused upon the air the entrancing odor dear to the nostrils of +all artists. + +The servant meantime had provided tiny cups, a little copper ibrik and +an alcohol lamp over which simmered a vessel of boiling water. + +"Coffee should be prepared only over coals of perfumed wood," Helen +remarked as she measured into the ibrik the small spoonful of coffee +dust designed for a single cup. "But alcohol is the next best thing, it +burns with such a supernatural flame." + +She put into the ibrik a measure of boiling water, rested it an instant +over the flame to restore the heat lost in the cooler copper, and then +poured the beverage into the egg-shell cup destined for it. + +"To my master first," she said, presenting the steaming cup to Herman, +who received it much as one might a gift from the skies. "I learned my +coffee making," she continued, "from an old Arab at Cairo, who used to +say that it was one of the only two things in life worth doing, the +other being the duties of religion; and it therefore should be +perfectly done." + +"It is simply divine," the sculptor said. "I have never really tasted +coffee before. Only if it is made like this your Arab might have said +there was but one thing in life, for this becomes a religious duty." +One by one with equal care were prepared cups for the others, who were +neither slow nor perfunctory in their endorsement of the sculptor's +praise. + + + + +XIV. + +THIS IS NOT A BOON. + Othello; iii.--3. + + + "'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow;'" + +Hummed Grant Herman to himself, taking his lonely way down the dim and +dingy streets leading to the wharves where he had his abode: + + "'I strew these opiate flowers--' + +Oh, what a woman she is! She might be Brunhilde, or she might be Burd +Helen; + + 'I strew these--' + +I wonder what she had to say to Fenton that she made him stay. Confound +that fellow! I'm not more than half sure that I'm fond of him; though I +can't bring myself fairly and squarely to dislike him. But I wish he +didn't know Mrs. Greyson quite so well; he's going to be married, too. +I wonder how he came to know her, any how. It is strange she doesn't +wear black if she is a widow. I'd like to learn something more definite +about her, but Fenton's the only one who would be likely to know, and I +certainly will not ask him. I suppose he is there yet, lounging in some +sort of an outlandish shape." + +Arthur was indeed still in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an +attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of +himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been +suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual +difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching +Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying the room a little. + +"We have been too good friends," she said, "to say good-by in public. +The old days have been pleasant, and it is hard to give them up." + +"You have insisted upon it that they are gone forever," he returned, +"until I almost begin to believe you. But it is no matter. _Che sarà +sarà_." + +"Yes; _che sarà sarà_," she echoed. "But now are you willing to do +me a favor? I haven't asked many of you." + +"You certainly deserve that I should say yes without a quibble," +replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the +risk; so I will merely answer,--I would like to do you a favor if I +may." + +She came and sat down near him, a beautiful woman, flushed and tender. +It arose perhaps from the delicate sensitiveness of both that they had +always instinctively avoided those chance contacts which between lovers +become so significant, confining themselves to rare hand-shakes at +meeting and parting; and it may be that their very scrupulousness in +this matter proves how near they had been to more emotional relations +than those of simple friendship. Now when Helen laid her hand upon her +friend's arm it marked an earnestness which showed how much she felt +what she was about to say. + +"I want you to give me something that Will gave you the other day." + +Fenton's first feeling was one of annoyance, but this was quickly +replaced by a desire to fathom the motives which prompted her request. + +"How did you know of it?" he asked. + +"By divination," she answered, with a faint smile. "Will you give it to +me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Because I ask you." + +"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?" + +"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that +in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss +Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may +lead you to--to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy +with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a +right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman +with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of +deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours. +You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy." + +"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a +tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen, +it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that +vial. It is all like a scene in _The City of Dreadful Night_. I +cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness. +Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very +strong reasons to suppose that any body else will." + +"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a +wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow +the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is +true." + +"But she will not know." + +"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to +discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to +conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the +slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any +friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial." + +He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his +arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of +those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged +in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to +appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating +pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely. + +"But what would you do with it, Helen?" + +She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought +that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift +oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been +conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in +Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish +her purpose. + +"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want +you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my +word that I will never use it myself." + +He still made no movement to surrender the vial, but she held out her +hand. + +"Come," she pleaded. "I appeal to your best self. For the sake of your +mother, Arthur,--you have told me you could refuse her nothing she +asked, and she would surely ask this if she were alive and knew. Give +it to me." + +He slowly drew from some inner pocket the little morocco case and held +it in both hands looking at it. + +"It is a comfort to me," he said. "It means an end of every thing. It +means annihilation; it means getting rid of this nightmare of +existence. I can remember when I dreaded the idea of annihilation, but +I have come to feel that it is the only good to be desired. To be done +with every thing and to forget every thing! Don't you see, Helen; I +should never be satisfied with any thing short of omnipotence and +omniscience, and annihilation is the only refuge for a nature like +that. I want to be everything; to feel the joy of the conqueror and yet +not miss the keen, fine pang of the conquered--Lowell says it +somewhere; to be + + 'Both maiden and lover'-- + +I forget it--'bee and clover, you know; to be the 'red slayer' and 'the +slain' both. Do you wonder I want to keep this?" + +A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness came over Helen. Only half +consciously she spoke a thought aloud: + +"You are half mad from introspection." + +He turned upon her a quizzical smile. + +"I dare say," said he. "It isn't a comfortable process either. If a man +has lived twenty-five years, Helen, and has not so entangled his life +in a web of circumstances that no power will ever be able to +extricate it, he may consider his first quarter century of existence a +success." + +He spoke with a bitter good humor not uncommon with him, and he +believed himself sincere. He even mentally applauded himself for the +justness of the sentiment, and was not untouched with pity for a being +in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret +complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of +relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case. +Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and +she drew the dangerous gift out of his fingers. + +She sprang up and locked it away in a cabinet. + +"There!" she exclaimed, standing before him in a sudden revulsion of +feeling, her face flushed and her eyes shining. "Now I will tell you +what I think of you. I think you mean to be good to others, but--" + +"You always think better of me than I deserve," he interrupted; "at +least you treat me better." + +"That does not necessarily indicate any leniency of judgment," retorted +Helen. "I think you are self-centered, and morbid; and if marriage +doesn't reform you, I give you up, for nothing will. Suffering is only +an effect, the cause is sensibility; and you keep yourself abnormally +sensitive by having yourself always upon the vivisection table." + +She turned and walked away from him. Her emotion was getting beyond her +control. Her friendships were keen with the intensity of her passionate +nature; she had not passed through this struggle lightly, and perhaps +the victory unnerved her more than defeat would have done. On his part +he endeavored to turn every thing off as usual with a jest. + +"Have I told you Bently's latest?" he began. "He--" + +"It is of no use," she said, returning to him, tears overflowing her +eyes. "You cannot help my making a spectacle of myself; and you had +better go. Oh, Arthur, I hope so much for you; I do so hope for +happiness coming to you out of this marriage; but I shall be so +lonely." + +Her voice broke despite her effort. She came nearer, she hesitated an +instant; then she bent over and kissed his forehead. A hot tear +splashed upon his hand. + +"There," she said. "Good night, and good-by. When you come back you +will see what a fine steady old lady I have become." + +He got on to his feet, confused, troubled, pitying her profoundly and +commiserating himself upon the awkwardness of the situation. He tried +to frame some sentence which might bridge the distance that seemed +suddenly to have opened between them. Like a farewell, a renunciation +or a dedication, that kiss impressed upon him a certain remoteness new +and oppressive. + +"Bah!" he broke off. "I can say nothing, Helen. I have thus far served +in an already sufficiently unhappy world only to make people more +miserable still. I'm not worth a faintest regret. Good-night. If I can +ever serve you--Good-by!" + + + + +XV. + +'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL. + Othello; i--3. + + +Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss, +which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and +realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his +companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt +them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not +spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being +much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been +the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had +believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning +her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard +for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love. +She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of +a blighted passion. + +She sighed deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's +disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her +work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze +her energies and enervate her whole being. + +The gown which she had worn upon the previous evening lay over a chair, +giving out, as she lifted it, an odor of tobacco smoke. Some remark +made by Grant Herman about the fumes which had filled the little parlor +came into her mind, giving a new current to her thoughts. She +unconsciously fell to thinking of the sculptor, and, by a natural +connection of ideas, of Ninitta, who was still nominally posing for +her. + +Partly from interest in the girl herself and partly from the perception +that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had +retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the +model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive +ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, +not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so +strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so +sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her +hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning +kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although Ninitta was +perhaps scarcely to be reckoned among these extremists, she yet found +so much comfort in pouring out her sorrows to one who could both +sympathize and appreciate, that little by little the whole pathetic +tale was told. + +"I did not understand," Ninitta said once in her broken English, "when +he left Rome. It was as if somebody had taken my life away somehow. I +couldn't make it seem that I was really alive all the same, though I +knew it could not be his fault. He would not have done it if he had +known. You do not believe he would have left me if he had known the +truth?" + +"No," Helen answered. "He could not have left you if he had known. It +was because he was hurt so much, and that could only be because he +loved you so much." + +"He loved me so much," poor Ninitta repeated murmuringly, "he loved me +so much." + +And all that day she followed Helen with wistful eyes, as if she longed +to hear her say again those precious words. + +"I cannot tell you what it was like in Paris," she said at another +time. "In Rome they all knew me. They knew I was betrothed, and no one +ever troubled me. But in Paris it was different. Oh, I hate Paris! And +it was so cruel that he was not there. It was so dreadful that he +should be on the other side of that horrible sea!" + +The girl was so self-forgetful in these revelations, she spoke always +with such an unshaken faith in Herman and was so free from any thought +of blaming him, that Helen could not but be touched. She soothed poor +Ninitta as well as she was able, having power to promise nothing, +seeing no way out of the entanglement, yet at least showing to the +lonely Italian that her woman's heart bled for her sorrow if she might +not alleviate it. Sometimes she felt like going to the sculptor and +entreating him to take pity upon the girl who so adoringly loved him. +Once when the model had told her how just as she had saved by long, +painful economy, nearly money enough to pay the passage to America it +was stolen and she was forced to begin the slow process over again, +Helen impulsively left her studio and found herself on the very +threshold of Herman's door before she realized what she had been about +to do. By what authority was she to interfere in a matter like this? If +Ninitta loved the sculptor who had long ago ceased to return her +affection, could matters be helped by an unloving marriage? It was not +for her, moreover, to give unasked her advice to such a man as she knew +Grant Herman to be. If he consulted her, she reflected, she might +present the pathetic, touching story which Ninitta had told her, but +she had plainly no pretext for forcing her feelings upon her master +unsought. + +She turned and went slowly up the stairs toward her little room; but +suddenly she paused. She had all at once become conscious that she +desired eagerly to know the nature of the sculptor's feelings toward +his old love. Why, she asked herself, was she so interested in what +after all did not personally concern her. A quick emotion, almost too +vague to be called a thought, made her cheek flame. + +"No, no," she said half aloud. "It is only that I am touched by +Ninitta's sadness. It is nothing more." + +But her breath came more quickly, and it was with difficulty that upon +re-entering her studio she assumed a quiet mien, lest her model should +guess at her unfulfilled errand. + +On the morning following the meeting of the Pagans at her rooms, Helen +was alone in her studio. She had told Ninitta she should be late and +the latter was therefore tardy in arriving. Mrs. Greyson uncovered her +bas-relief, now rapidly nearing completion, and stood before it, +examining critically its merits and defects. A familiar step in the +passage, a tap at the door, and Grant Herman joined her. + +"You look as fresh as ever this morning," he said. "I feared that the +entertaining of such a company of Bohemians would have tired you out." + +"No, indeed," she returned. "I am of far too much endurance to be worn +out by any thing of that sort. I have a drop of Bohemian blood in my +veins myself, I think, and I like to meet men as men--when they are +simply good fellows together, I mean. A woman usually sees men in an +attitude of either deference or defense, and there is something +inspiriting to her in being occasionally received as a comrade." + +"There are few women who can be received so," returned Herman. "I +suppose it requires both an especial temperament and especial +experiences to render a woman capable of being a comrade to men." + +The talk drifted away to general and indifferent subjects, broken here +and there by allusions and criticisms relating to the Flight of the +Months, and not infrequently dropping into brief silences. One of these +Herman broke by saying abruptly: + +"You do not know how your song has haunted me all night. I have been +saying over and over to myself + + 'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow.' + +And, indeed, I longed for some such soporific myself before morning. +Your coffee or your song, or--yourself,"--he hesitated over the last +word--kept me very effectually awake." + +"It must have been the coffee; there was little potency in either of +the other causes." + +"There is much," he returned resolutely, advancing a step nearer. "Mrs. +Greyson, I have not wasted the night. I have thought out a great many +things; the first and chief being in regard to yourself." + +His tone, the piercing glow of his eyes, warned Helen what was coming. +She thought of Ninitta, and retreated a step. + +"It is true," the sculptor continued, as if answering the doubt implied +by her movement, "that I--" + +The door opened softly and Ninitta came in. + +His outstretched hand dropped; the words died upon his lips. He turned +from one woman to the other an appealing look of hopeless sadness and +left the studio in silence. + +It was characteristic of Helen's generosity that her first thought +should be of the pain which Ninitta must feel. One glance at the model +was sufficient to show that the Italian had comprehended enough of the +interrupted scene to be made wretched; but it did not then occur to +Mrs. Greyson that to Ninitta's jealous soul, unsuspicious of Herman, +the only explanation of a fondness between the sculptor and his pupil +lay in an effort on the part of the latter to win from the model her +rightful and long betrothed lover. + + + + +XVI. + +CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH. + As You Like It; i.--2. + + +Grant Herman sat in his studio in the gathering twilight thinking +gloomily. However little Mrs. Greyson suspected the tumult which would +be aroused in Ninitta's breast by the misadventure of the morning, the +sculptor was too well aware of the Italian's passionate nature not to +dread the consequences of the jealousy she was sure to feel. He knew, +moreover, that Ninitta's rage would vent itself not upon him but upon +Helen, and he wondered how best to avert the danger that threatened. + +He debated with himself, too, how much he owed to the girl who gave her +life up so unreservedly to him. His old love--"call it rather mere +boyish passion," he-thought scornfully--was long since dead beyond +hope; yet the devotion which it had awakened in Ninitta burned on as +steadily as ever. Had he now a right to repulse the love he had himself +called into being; to throw aside the fondness he had himself fostered +and which he had once prized above measure. + +"No," he thought, "a thousand times no. A man must be a villain who +would not marry a girl under such circumstances. I am hers; the fact +that I have changed is my misfortune, not her fault. If I have any +manliness about me, I won't let things go on in this way any longer. +I'll marry Ninitta. It is the smallest reparation I can make for the +long years of pain I have caused her. There is no other course for me. + +"But I do not love her, and a woman, they say, always instinctively +feels it when a man's heart is not hers. Nonsense! That is only a +cowardly excuse. At least Ninitta would never be troubled. She has not +known so much love that she can draw very sharp comparisons. No; she +will be satisfied; and I--well, if a man is such a devilish fool as I +have been, it remains for him to pay the penalty. Oh, if youth only +knew!" + +He sighed deeply and began to walk up and down the studio, in which the +dusk was gathering thickly. A last faint gleam from a window high in +the riverward wall fell upon one of the mutilated goddesses in the +gallery. Herman looked up, contemplating the phantom-like head +gloomily. Something in its pose, or perhaps more truly something in his +own mind, suggested a faint likeness to Helen, as if it were her ghost +looking down from some far height upon the conflict of his soul. + +"Ah!" he cried hotly to himself. "And she? How can I give up the hope +of winning her? What was a boy's foolish fancy to the passion of a +man--and for such a woman! She is half goddess. No, no; I cannot do it. +I cannot marry this Italian peasant, this model that has who knows what +history! I will not; I owe something to myself, to my art. What is the +simple happiness of Ninitta to my art? I should be a fool to ignore how +much more to the world my own well-being is worth than is hers; and +what could I not do with the inspiration of the other! Oh, my God!" + +The darkness grew. The phantom faded imperceptibly away. He was left +alone in the darkness to fight out his battle. He marched with great +strides, avoiding obstacles by a certain sixth sense born of constant +familiarity with the place. He fought manfully, persuading himself that +his scruples were as idle as air, remnants of the long since outgrown +superstitions of his childhood. He defiantly claimed the right to be +true to his powers, to his genius, rather than to an empirical standard +erected by narrow moralists. He should be thankful that he had escaped +entangling his life by that absurd marriage in Rome seven years ago, +and that he was now free to win a wife worthy Of himself and of his +art. + +Yet he cut through all the meshes of logic he had himself been weaving, +by striking his strong hands together there in the dark, and crying +aloud, his voice startling him in the stillness: + +"My God! What a poltroon I have become! Shall I cast on others the +burden of my own mistakes?" + +And seizing hat and cloak he left the studio, taking his way towards +the narrow street where Ninitta lodged, hastening to ask her to marry +him before his resolution faltered. + + + + +XVII. + +THIS "WOULD" CHANGES. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +Herman found Ninitta alone in the attic which served her for a home in +this bleak northern city, so far and so different from her own sunny +Capri. + +Bare and half furnished as was the room, the girl had contrived to +impart to it a certain air which removed it from the common-place. A +bit of flimsy drapery, begged from some studio, hung over one of the +windows; a rude print of the Madonna was pinned to the wall, and under +it, on the wooden table, was a bunch of withered flowers. They were +roses which Helen had given Ninitta, and the Italian, returning home +that day, had in her jealous rage thrown them to the floor and trampled +upon them. Then remembering that they had been offered to the Madonna, +she had been seized with a superstitious fear, and carefully restoring +the battered flowers, had eagerly vowed a fresh bunch to the Holy +Mother if she might be forgiven this sacrilege. + +But the most beautiful article in the room was a cast of a woman's +shoulder. It had been modeled by Herman in the earliest days of his +acquaintance with Ninitta, when she had been still only his model and +not his betrothed. He was touched as he looked at it now. Yellow with +time and soiled by its various journeyings, it still preserved unmarred +its lovely shape, exquisite curve melting into exquisite curve as +softly and sweetly as in those glowing days when he had molded it under +the sky of Italy. + +He looked from the cast to Ninitta. He had only seen her at the studio, +and he experienced a faint feeling of surprise at detecting a subtle +difference in her here at home. It was nothing so tangible that he +could have told by what means he received the impression, yet it was +sufficiently definite to make him lose something of the freedom with +which he had always addressed her. She was no longer simply the model, +she was an Italian woman in her own home. + +The years during which they had been separated had formed and +strengthened Ninitta's character. If Herman had not before noted the +alteration, it was due in part to his pre-occupation and in part to the +force of old habit which made her manner toward him much the same as +formerly. To-night he began to appreciate the change in her, and he +felt the awkwardness which always results from the discovery that we +must adapt ourselves to a modified condition in a friend. + +On her side Ninitta was naturally surprised at seeing the sculptor. She +had come to regard as hopeless all speculations upon his intentions, +and she had waited patiently until he should choose to show her favor, +tacitly acknowledging his right to do whatever should be his good +pleasure. Had he come at any time and said, "Ninitta, I am here to +marry you," she would gladly but quietly have made ready to follow +where he chose to lead, even to the world's end. Equally, had he said, +"Ninitta, I have come to say good-by; you will never see me again," she +would have acquiesced without a murmur, and then, perhaps, have taken +her own life. As long as it was his simple wish, uninfluenced by the +will of another, she would never have questioned. + +Now, however, all passive acquiescence was at an end. Since the scene +in Helen's studio, Ninitta had an object upon which to expend all her +energies, and she even almost forgot to love Herman in the intensity of +her sudden jealous hatred of Mrs. Greyson. Yesterday Grant Herman would +have found a woman not unlike the Ninitta of old times, tender, loving, +pathetically submissive; today he was confronted by a fury, only +restrained by the respect for his presence born of long habit. + +"Good evening!" he said gently, as he entered, his mood softened by the +struggle through which he had passed in his studio. + +"Good evening!" she answered defiantly, in Italian. "So you are not +with her!" + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +He had been wholly unprepared for this outburst, and for the instant +was too surprised to at all understand it. + +A sudden rage seemed to seize Ninitta, which swept away all barriers of +restraint. + +"_Si_, _si_, _si_," she cried, "I am not blind! What if +you are my betrothed, when this woman comes to entrap you, to bewitch +you with an evil eye, to steal your soul! Yes, yes; you are not with +her to-night as you were last night. Did I not see you myself come out +of her house?" + +"Stop!" he said in his most commanding tone, but without anger. + +The calmness and decision of the manner arrested her. She sank back +into a chair, regarding him with defiant eyes. + +"So you have followed me," continued Herman, speaking with painful +slowness, so that every word seemed to poor Ninitta to fall upon her +like a curse; "so you have played the spy upon me. Ah!" + +As he looked at her she began to cower. She shrank back in her seat, +putting up her hands to shield her face from his gaze. + +"Yet I meant to marry you," he said, half to himself, although still +addressing her. "I came to-night to say, 'Come, Ninitta, let us take up +the broken romance that a cruel mistake interrupted there in Rome.' I +had long ago outgrown my old fancy, but I meant to be true to my +promise to you. I meant to give up even my ambition for your sake; to +make your life happy and secure. And this is your trust in me! If you +really loved me, to track me like a thief would have been impossible to +you. And where have you learned this trick of playing the spy?" he went +on with growing wrath, becoming more and more cruel with every word. +"It is a relic of your Paris life, I fancy. It is hardly a resource to +which a good girl would be driven. I at least believed you when you +told me you had been true to me." + +He spoke rapidly, aggressively. The fact that he was outraging his own +instincts in beating with bitter words the girl who bowed before him +with drooping head and disheveled hair made him but the more harsh. To +fall from the height of self-sacrifice into a pool of vulgar intrigue! +Bah! His disgust at himself for ever having known this woman seemed too +great to be borne. + +Yet under all his passionate protest and repulsion he was conscious +that he doubted what he was himself saying with so much vehemence; that +he secretly believed Ninitta to be true and pure, and that to her +Italian blood, to her peasant nurture, was due the espionage in which +she had been self-betrayed. The sting of conscience, too, in the +knowledge that the model's jealousy of Helen was well founded, the +humiliation of finding his feelings and motives discovered, increased +his irritation. He felt a base desire to stab and humiliate Ninitta, +but for whom he might be free to win the one woman he had ever loved; +and the more his denunciations recoiled to hurt himself, the more +eagerly he poured them out, as in some moods of mental anguish one +finds relief in the pain of self-inflicted physical hurts. + +"Yes," he said, more and more completely abandoning control of himself; +"yes, this tells sufficiently what you have learned in Paris." + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and groveling +there. "No, no! For the love of the Virgin, signor, not that! I have +been good. Oh, for the love of God, signor! For the love of God!" + +She was shaken by the storm of sobs in which her words ended. She got +hold of his feet and refused to rise when he attempted to lift her. Her +long hair, escaped from its stilletto, fell about her face. Even in +this agitated moment the sculptor in Grant Herman noted with a sharp, +aesthetic pleasure the beautiful curves of her neck and shoulders. + +"Pity," she went on between her agonized sobs. "Oh, forgive me! I will +do any thing you wish. I will go away and leave you." + +He stooped and raised her by main force, yet tenderly. + +"There, there, Ninitta," he said, "I was wrong. I do believe you are a +good girl; but you should not have played the spy." + +He soothed her as well as he was able, her violence spending itself in +passionate tears. She drew herself away from him, and sat down again in +the chair she had been occupying. She put up her hands to her head, +twisting the loose tresses into a great coil. The sleeve of her dress, +unfastened in her agitation, fell back from her rounded arm. The superb +lines of her figure were displayed by her attitude. Her face, flushed +with weeping and lighted by the still tear-wet eyes, if not beautiful, +was appealing and pitiful. Some fiber touched of old vibrated anew in +his being. He made a step forward. + +"Ninitta," he said, "I came to-night to ask you to marry me at once; to +fulfill the promise I made you so long ago." + +The words and the tone both were tender, but he had said those same +words in anger just before. + +"But you do not love me," she responded, her arms dropping pathetically +into her lap. "You have said it." + +"But I was angry," answered Herman, for the moment almost believing +that his old love was re-awakened. "I did not mean you to believe it." + +"If you do love me," she said, a new look coming into her eyes, "you +will promise me never to see her again." + +He started back as if from a blow. His frail dream of passion was +shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt +that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged +into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush and her eye kindled. + +"Promise me," she repeated. "It is little for love to ask. It is my +right." + +With instinctive feminine guile she leaned towards him in an attitude +so beautiful, so appealing that even now he was moved. But with this +emotion came, too, a subtle if now fainter sense of degradation that he +was susceptible to this dangerous fascination, with a painful +consciousness of how wide a moral gulf had opened between them by the +anger and vulgar jealousy which Ninitta displayed. It is not +impossible, too, that his instinctive clinging to Helen was a stronger +power than he knew; while still through all his mingled emotions ran +the resolve he had made to give himself up to his old betrothed. + +"No," he said; yet as he moved slowly towards the door he had the air +of a man who still deliberates. + +She threw herself back in her seat with a touching gesture of despair, +but also with a gleam of malice in her eyes, which he, turning with his +hand upon the latch, caught and understood. + +"No," he repeated with final decision. "No, no!" + + + + +XVIII. + +BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE. + Love's Labor's Lost; ii.--I. + + +Fenton had returned to Boston with his bride, but as yet Helen had not +seen him. One morning late in March, however, he came to call. + +"I could not come before," he said after the first greeting, "'I have +married a wife,' and the amount of arrangement and adjustment implied +in that statement is simply astounding." + +"I am glad to see you at last," she returned. "And your wife, is she +well?" + +"My wife," replied he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar +term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful +reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith +in a different way from the crowd." + +Helen crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair by the +window. + +"He ought to understand," was her thought. "Why cannot he see that it +is impossible for his wife and me to harmonize. We have no common +ground." + +"I shall be glad to," she said aloud, inwardly shrinking at the need of +speaking disingenuously to one with whom she had so long been upon +terms of frankness. "I will come very soon; to-day or to-morrow. +To-day, though, I must go and see my bas-relief. It is all ready to be +cut for the furnace; I only want to take a last look at it, to be sure +that every thing is right. If it will not bore you," she added, a +little hesitatingly, "you might come too; it is your last chance to +find fault to any advantage, for any changes must be made at once." + +"I'd like to go," answered her friend, looking at his watch, "if I can +get back to luncheon. Yes, there's plenty of time." + +"Benedick, the married man," laughed Helen. "That I should ever live to +see this air of domesticity!" + +They crossed the Common, chatting idly, and both conscious that the +frankness of their old intercourse was somehow lacking; that it was +necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the +former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred +during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of +amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations +which no longer had real existence. + +"Oh, Arthur," Helen laughed, suddenly, "let's not go on in this way! +Let us quarrel, or something. Say a wicked epigram; do any thing, +only don't be so eminently amiable!" + +"My head is as empty of ideas," he returned laughing, in his turn, "as +is a modern title-page of punctuation points. Besides, Edith has +forbidden wicked epigrams." + +"Does she therefore suppose she can suppress them?" + +"Oh, I don't know," responded Fenton, good-humoredly. "I am not in as +epigrammatic a frame of mind as I was." + +"'Tis a good sign." + +"Yes; a sign I am growing inane and respectable." + +"I can imagine you one about as easily as the other." + +"That is bitter-sweet; a compliment and a flout." + +"If I had said that," Helen observed, smiling, "you would have +retorted, with a look of gloomy solemnity, that most things in life are +bitter-sweet; unless, indeed, you felt called upon to phrase it that it +had the advantage of most earthly matters by not being wholly bitter." + +"Was I ever guilty of such commonplace attempts at epigrams as that?" +returned Arthur. "If so it is certainly a good thing that I have given +up repartee for matrimony." + +"Oh, that is brilliant beside many of your attempts, I assure you. And +as for your giving them up--I reserve my decision." + +"You shall see, skeptic," he said lightly. "I expect to change the face +of the whole world if necessary." + +"It is a common error of ardent temperaments," she returned pleasantly, +but with evident sincerity, "to assume that a state of feeling can +change the world." + +"But I must, I will," he began eagerly. Then the light died out of his +face and he ended with a shrug. + +Helen put up her hand with an impulsive gesture, as if about to speak. + +Then letting her arms fall by her side, she turned to unlock the studio +door, which by this time they had reached. + +The bas-relief was still shrouded in its damp envelopes, which Helen +carefully removed, keeping Fenton away, that he might first see the +work as a whole, and not lose its legitimate effect by catching +fragmentary glimpses as it was uncovered. When at last it was fully +disclosed, she called him to her as she stood before it. + +"By Jove! That's stunning!" he exclaimed, after an instant's pause, +which gave him time to see it fairly. "Helen, you have outdone +yourself! That figure is simply superb. I hadn't an idea you would come +out so well. I'm wonderfully proud of you." + +"You are more amiable than ever," she responded; but her flushed cheek +showed that she was touched by his earnest praise. "For that figure I +have to thank Ninitta's posing. She is an inspiration." + +"But Ninitta did not inspire that splendid head," observed Arthur, +pointing with his cane at the December, "and you evidently did that +_con amore_. By Jove! It's Grant Herman, as I live!" + +As he spoke he turned and saw Ninitta on the threshold. + +"Shall you want me to-day?" the latter asked of Helen. + +"What made that girl look so savage?" Fenton questioned as the door +closed behind the model. + +"She perhaps chooses to be jealous of me," Helen replied composedly. + +"_Elle a peutêtre raison_." + +"Perhaps." + +"You say that too calmly by half," was his gay response. "Yet as every +work a woman does has a man for its end--I learned that from the +classics; Penelope, you know, and even washwoman Nausicaä--I suppose it +is fair to assume this had. Only who is the man?" + +Helen flushed slightly. She recalled the ambition with which she had +begun this work, to make the man beside her praise its completion; and +she was conscious that before she finished it was the praise of Herman +for which she strove. + +"It is filthy lucre that inspires me," she replied steadily. "I need no +other incentive." + +They walked about the studio, talking of the bas-relief as seen from +different points; of how it was to be cut for firing; and on the safe +ground of art they forgot all personal constraints, until the striking +of a clock aroused Fenton to a sense of the flight of time. + +"I must go," he said. "I am no end glad I came. The truth is I am not +very well acquainted with this married man, and it is comfortable to +slip back occasionally into a familiar bachelor mood. However," he +continued with his brightest smile, "I like the Benedick far better +than I should ever have dreamed possible; and his wife is charming. And +I want to say, too," he added, "that I have a thousand times thanked +you for taking that vial before I went to be married. I'm in a spasm of +virtuousness just now, and it is pleasant to remember that I did not +have it that day." + +They went down stairs and out into the soft, spring-like day, +sauntering homeward in a happy and accordant mood. Arthur urged Helen's +going home to lunch with himself and Edith, but to Helen the morning +was far too precious to be ended in a possibly inharmonious meeting +with Mrs. Fenton. + +And that afternoon Herman sent for Mrs. Greyson in all haste. Ninitta +had vented her jealous rage upon the bas-relief, destroying the head of +December which she heard Fenton say must have been done _con +amore_, and the beautiful May for which she herself had posed. + + + + +XIX. + +NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS. + Romeo and Juliet; ii.--4. + + +Mrs. Fenton's wedding reception was largely attended. However strongly +the artist might savor of Bohemianism, his wife was connected with +certain prominent Philistines, and he had exhibited a most remarkable +readiness to have them present in force. + +"Into the camp of Philistia itself," muttered Rangely to Bently, as +they elbowed their way through the crowd. "By the great horn spoon, if +there isn't Peter Calvin! Arthur calls him the Great Boston Art Greek. +That ever I should live to see the humbug under Fenton's roof-tree!" + +"Pshaw!" returned Bently with an oath. "What a set of rubbishy old fobs +and dowagers there is here anyway. Is this the kind of people Fenton +means to know?" + +"Means to know," echoed Rangely. "He's got to go down on his marrow +bones to get them to consent to know him. They patronize art, and that +means that they snub artists." + +"Humph!" exclaimed Bently. "Is he sycophant enough to do that?" + +"That's as you look at it. His wife probably decides the matter for +him. She very naturally likes to know what she would call 'nice +people.' How those women chatter! I wonder what they find to talk +about." + +"Not necessarily any thing. They always talk all the same whether +they've any thing to say or not." + +"How much of life is wasted in enduring people for whom one does not +care," philosophized Rangely, looking over the throng which filled to +overflowing the Fentons' somewhat limited rooms. "Ah! There is Dr. +Ashton. How do you do, Doctor?" + +"As well as could be expected," the Doctor answered, "in this +antiquated assembly." + +"Oh, Boston is only an antiquarian society," laughed Rangely, "and +these old tabbies are all honorary members. By Jove, though, there are +some awfully pretty girls here." + +"I've observed that Boston girls are apt to be pretty when they give +their minds to it," remarked Bently. "Not when they wander round with +Homer under one arm and Virgil under the other and dyspepsia in the +stomach, but when they are deliberately frivolous." + +The throng separated them at this moment, and Dr. Ashton went in search +of host and hostess. Arthur caught sight of his tall figure, and made a +sign at once of recognition and summons. Struggling between a young +Episcopal clergyman and a corpulent old lady, Dr. Ashton made his way +with difficulty to the spot where his friend was standing. + +"You are the most married man I know, Arthur," was his greeting. +"Brigham Young wasn't a circumstance. I have been half an hour crossing +the room." + +"Dr. Ashton, Edith; my wife, Will," was the only reply Fenton made, +unless one could interpret the quizzical glance he bestowed upon his +friend. + +"I feel already acquainted with you," was Mrs. Fenton's remark, "I have +heard of you so often. My husband has spoken to me so much of his +friends that it is hard for me to realize that I do not know them +myself." + +"You have been very little in Boston, I believe," Dr. Ashton said, +looking at her in a sudden surprise at remembering that he had seen her +face before. + +"Very little," replied she, "I have been abroad a great part of my life +and--" + +New claims upon her attention ended the conversation with that charming +abruptness characteristic of such an occasion, and the Doctor was left +to elbow his way out of the crush, with the sense of having done all +that would be required of him. He found a corner where he could watch +the hostess and fell to wondering whether Mrs. Fenton in her turn +remembered their previous meeting. + +Edith Fenton was a slender, nun-like woman, too pale, with a smile of +wonderful attractiveness. "A woman to wear lilies," was the way Grant +Herman put it afterward; a remark which conveyed well the purity of her +face. Her ease of manner showed familiarity with the conventionalities +of life, yet in some vague way she seemed removed from the people by +whom she was to-day surrounded. + +"She has been brought up in the old narrow ways," Dr. Ashton reflected, +"but there are great possibilities about her. She'll either be the +making of Fenton or send him to the dogs. She will scarcely find much +room in her house for many of his former friends, I fancy." + +He stood watching the people and amusing himself with cynical +speculations until he saw Grant Herman's great figure among the guests. +He knew him but slightly and looked at him with an indifference which a +couple of hours later he regretted. Herman cared little for the +formalities of the occasion, and very likely might have gone away +without even being presented to the hostess had not Fred Rangely taken +him in charge and brought him safely through that ceremony. Now the +sculptor was looking for Mrs. Greyson, of whom he soon caught sight, +when he began making his way towards her. She however perceived him, +and with the feeling that she could not bear to meet him in public just +at this time, she evaded him by slipping into the window where her +husband was ensconced. + +"Take me out of this, please," she said, "I am tired." + +He gave her his arm without speaking, and together they made their way +from the room. + +"I want to talk to you," he remarked easily. "Mayn't I walk home with +you?" + +When she was ready they went together out into the starlit streets. +Neither spoke at first, each carrying on a train of thought to which +the other could have no adequate clew. + +"Who is Arthur's wife?" Dr. Ashton asked at length. "I know she was a +Miss Caldwell, that she came from Providence, and that she has been an +orphan so short a time that they had a perfectly quiet wedding; but +that is the extent of my knowledge. Is she an artist?" + +"An amateur," answered Helen. "She studied in Paris. He met her there. +She is a relative, I forget just how far or near, of Peter Calvin. She +seems to me an icicle. Think of Arthur's marrying a _religieuse_!" + +"What is his game, I wonder," said her companion thoughtfully. "Do you +know when she was in Paris? Was it when we were there." + +"Let me see," Helen responded, with a mental calculation. "Yes; she +must have been there the last year we were. Why? Did you ever meet +her?" + +"Perhaps," was the careless reply. + +They reached Helen's door as he spoke. + +"Come in," she said. "Fortunately I can make you a salad. It is a long +time since we had a _petit souper_ together. I have, too, +something to say to you." + +He followed her to the pretty parlor, and sat idly chatting while she +made her preparations for the supper. + + + + +XX. + +THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED. + Merchant of Venice; iii.--2. + + +It was a dainty little table to which Helen invited her husband when +every thing was ready. The china was of odd bits picked up here and +there abroad, and it was now disposed with an artist's eye for color +and grouping. A tall bottle of Rhine wine had come from some mysterious +nook, and beside it were a pair of fine old German glasses, frail as +bubbles. + +"I have always to offer my guests Rhine wine," Helen said, "for I've no +glasses for any thing else. Arthur is ungracious enough to object. He +does not like white wine as you do." + +"I do like it," her guest answered, drawing the cork, "and so does +Arthur, only he does not know it. He has somewhere stumbled upon the +whim of pretending not to, and he can deceive himself more completely +than any other man I ever saw. Rhine wine is the most poetic of +beverages. It should go down like oil and only leave a fragrance like a +poet's dream behind it." + +"That is quite a rhapsody for you, Will; only your cool tone gives it a +certain cynical flavor." + +"I mean all I say, I assure you. Champagne is vulgar. It is the drink +of self-made snobs and cads who wish to pass for men of the world; but +Rhine wine is the drink for poets and artists." + +"I am delighted to hear you defend it; it is very good of you, when I +happen to know you are not fond of it. It is a graceful return for my +inhospitality in not giving you your favorite Burgundy, but I haven't a +drop." + +"Oh, don't mind the wine! I came to see you," Dr. Ashton said, with his +delightful smile. "How droll it was to see Arthur to-day. Do you think +he has really persuaded himself he is in love with his wife?" + +"Arthur has great adaptability," Helen returned. "I think he believes +he is in love. I'm sure I hope you'll not feel it your duty to tell him +he isn't." + +"I'm not Mephistopheles," answered Dr. Ashton, smiling, and watching +appreciatively as she made the salad. + +Mrs. Greyson had dressed carefully for the reception from which she had +just come, and her cream-colored cashmere, with soft old thread lace, +and a bunch of amber-hued roses at the throat, became her as only a +dress chosen by an artist could. It fell away from her exquisite arms, +and from among the lace rose her beautiful neck, the stuff of her gown +setting off the lovely texture of her skin to perfection. + +"I must not ruin my best attire," she said lightly, gathering it up. +"Now Ninitta has spoiled my bas-relief, it may be long before I get +more. I owe you a good deal, Will, for letting me study modeling in +Paris." + +"It was pure selfishness," he returned good-humoredly. "I wanted to +keep you busy so that I might go my own way. But what about your +bas-relief? Who spoiled it? Who is Ninitta, and what has she against +you?" + +"That is what I wanted to tell you." + +She did not speak again for a moment, seemingly intent upon the exact +measurement of the ingredients of her salad. In reality she was +considering how best to present what she had to say. She mentally ran +over the points she wished to make, becoming thereby conscious that she +had herself come to no definite conclusions upon the topic she was +about to discuss. She looked furtively at her husband, noting his +attitude, his expression, and whatever her past experience enabled her +to construe into indications of his mood. As well and as long as she +had known this man, she was still ignorant of the key to his nature--that +feeling or motive which, touched in an ultimate appeal, would +always insure a response. Conscience is the fruit of the tree of +experience, and, taken in this sense, every man must be possessed of a +conscience, which by its inner voice re-enforces any pleading which +coincides with its dictates. What was the nature of her husband's +inward monitor Helen had never been able to discover and at this moment +she realized keenly her ignorance. + +"Will," she said earnestly, laying down her salad-fork and spoon, "I +think it is wrong for us to live as we do." + +He shrugged his shoulders, looking at her curiously. + +"I cannot flatter myself that you care to return to the old +uncomfortableness." + +She flushed warmly, with a keen pang of mingled pain and indignation. + +"No," she replied. "No; never that. It is not for ourselves, but for +others." + +"Others! Fenton?" + +She flushed more deeply still. + +"I have told you already that you are mistaken about my regard for +Arthur. It was not he I meant." + +She served her guest, and sat playing nervously with her fork as he ate +and praised the salad. + +"Mr. Herman sent for me the other afternoon," she began again, forcing +herself to speak calmly. "My model Ninitta is very fond of him, and +chose to be jealous of his praise of my work. It might have all gone +over without an outburst, I suppose, if she had not had her attention +called to the fact that I had modeled his head for December. Why she +had never happened to notice it I don't know; she was in the studio +constantly." + +"Not when he was there?" queried Dr. Ashton, holding up his graceful, +antique wine-glass and admiring it. + +"No, not when he was there," repeated his wife. "She had pounded off +the head when he sent for me with a mallet she had picked up in his +studio. I never saw him in such a rage. She was gone when I got there. +She didn't make any attempt to conceal it. She came stalking +melodramatically into his studio with the mallet and laid it down. +'There,' said she, 'now kill me. I have broken her work.' It was like a +fashion magazine story. He thought at first she had gone mad." + +"So she had. Women are always insane when they are jealous. I wish I +had Arthur's knack at epigram, and I'd make that sound original." + +"He says he was very harsh," Helen continued, "though I fancy he could +not be quite that in any circumstances. It was very hard," she added +with a sigh. "It was like looking at a dead child to see my best work +ruined. It was really a part of myself." + +"But can't it be repaired? It was in the clay, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, but I fear for my exhausted enthusiasm. I can never do it as it +was before. My poor, unlucky December." + +She toyed with her glass absently, apparently for the moment forgetting +her companion, who continued his supper with no less relish than +before. He watched her keenly, however, fully aware that there was more +to be told. He was a man too accustomed to follow any desire or indulge +any whim not to notice appreciatively, as he had noticed many times +before, how beautiful were the curves of his wife's arms and throat, +and with what grace her head was poised. He had once defined a liberal +man as one who could appreciate his own wife, and he would have been +far more insensible than he was, if, with this beautiful woman before +him he had not been, judged by his own standard, extremely liberal. + +"And this has what to do with the question of our relations being +known?" he asked. + +She started from her reverie, the red again showing faintly in her +cheek. + +"It is hardly fair," she answered in a tone softer and lower than that +in which she had been speaking, "to tell you all that Mr. Herman said. +He wishes to marry me." + +"And you wish you were free to have it so?" + +There was once more a pause. Helen busied herself in an elaborate +arrangement of the torn lettuce leaves upon her plate, seemingly +concentrating all her thoughts upon forming them into an intricate +figure. + +"Will," she said, suddenly, lifting her eyes and leaning towards him, +"I do not know how to make you understand. I haven't succeeded so well +in my attempts thus far in life as to be very sanguine of doing it now. +You do not know how ashamed and contemptible I felt for being party to +the deception that made it possible for him to speak so to me. He was +so honest, so earnest; he was so unconscious of the barriers between +us. I felt that I had done him such an irreparable wrong by concealing +the truth. He had a right to know that I am a married woman." + +"Did you tell him?" + +"No; but I must. I want to be free from the promise we made to each +other." + +"It all comes," returned her husband without any show of irritation, +"from my telling Fenton." + +"I cannot see what that has to do with it. I like the absence from +questioning, the avoidance of gossip, as much as you can; but it makes +me feel as if I were a living lie to have Mr. Herman bringing his +honest love to me to be met only by deception. It is cruel and it is +wrong." + +"That depends entirely upon how you define wrong," retorted Dr. Ashton +coolly. "I do not see why it is wrong for me to decline to sacrifice my +convenience to Mr. Herman's sentiment. But without going into the +question of metaphysics, let us look at the matter reasonably. Do you +love Mr. Herman?" + +Notwithstanding the studied nonchalance of his tone, a glance into his +eyes might have shown Helen how much importance he attached to her +answer. A woman is peculiarly dangerous when she is telling one man +that another loves her. The masculine greed of possession is aroused by +the mere thought of a possible rival, and Dr. Ashton was conscious at +this moment of a kindling desire himself to win Helen's love, which he +knew perfectly well had never been his. + +"That is not at all relevant," was her reply, her eyes downcast. "The +question of honesty is enough now. At least I respect Mr. Herman, and I +must treat him squarely, as you would say. You have always told me to +be 'a square fellow,' you know," she added, raising her glance with a +faint smile. + +"But if you tell him," said her husband, with a subtle tinge of +impatience in his tone, "others must know. You can't go on letting one +after another into the secret without its soon becoming public +property." + +"Why not then?" she responded. "I wonder we have been able to keep it +so long. It is sure to be known now you have come home. I do not mean +to proclaim it upon the housetops; but to let it work out if it will. +What harm can it do?" + +"It will harm me. My life is not so secluded as yours is, Helen, It +will make things confoundedly awkward. I shall have to go about giving +endless explanations. Besides, here is Arthur's wife. I particularly +don't want her to know." + +"Why not? It is precisely that I was coming to. She seems to feel far +more kindly to me than I should have supposed possible. I can't lie to +her, Will. She has already asked me questions about my past life hard +to answer. I want to tell her, so that we may have an honest basis for +our friendship. I don't want to lose my hold on her." + +"Nor on Arthur," acquiesced he gravely. "It is for that reason that I +say you had better not tell her. I usually know what I am saying, do I +not? I tell you it is for your own sake that I warn you to be quiet. +Arthur isn't going to be held in the leash very long by that piece of +china-ware piety, and it is to you he will naturally turn for sympathy. +Don't spoil your chance of his friendship by breaking with her yet." + +"Will," his wife said, with a glitter in her eyes he knew of old, +"sometimes you talk like a very fiend incarnate." + +"That," he replied rising, "is precisely what I am. There are a few +rare, but fairly well authenticated cases on record, Helen, where a man +under stress of circumstances, has been able to keep his own counsel; +women without a confidant go mad. For your own sake you'd better trust +me, now that Arthur isn't available; so I'll come and see you again. I +am obliged to you for this jolly little supper. Your salads always were +perfection. I'd like to stay and have you make me some coffee, but I +have an engagement at twelve. Good-night." + + + +XXI. + +HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; iv.--2. + + +When Grant Herman attempted to speak with Mrs. Greyson at the Fenton's +reception, he had more in view than simply the desire of being near the +woman he loved. He was full of trouble and bewilderment, and +instinctively turned toward her for aid and sympathy. + +The scene between himself and Helen, to which the latter had alluded in +her conversation with Dr. Ashton, was of far deeper import than her +words might have seemed to imply. In the first shock of discovering +that her work was broken she had been so overcome, that although she +struggled bravely to conceal her feelings, she had excited the +sculptor's keenest pity; and it not unnaturally followed that in +attempting to express his sympathy he found himself telling his love +before he was aware. He had determined to be silent upon this subject. +Uncertain what were Helen's feelings towards him and restrained by a +sense of loyalty to the bond which united him to Ninitta, he had +resolved to bury his love in his own breast, at least until time gave +him opportunity of honorably declaring it. Now circumstances betrayed +him into an avowal of his passion; and he was not without the indignant +feeling that Ninitta's act had freed him from all obligations to her. +It might have required an ingenious casuist to arrive logically at the +conclusion that an injury which the Italian had done to another +released him from his plighted word, but the person injured was the +woman he loved, and he blindly felt that Ninitta had struck at himself +through his most sensitive feelings. He renounced all the fealty to +which he had been held by a sense of honor, and he now poured out to +Helen the full tide of his passionate love. + +The sculptor was not a man to be lightly moved, but it is these calm, +grave natures that once aroused are most irresistible. His passionate +outburst took Helen unaware; she scarcely knew what she did, and she +became suddenly aware of a truth so overwhelming that every thing else +faded into insignificance beside it. + +"I love you!" he cried out; and at the word she first knew, with a +poignant pang of mingled bliss and anguish, that she too loved him. + +It seemed to her that some power above her own volition ruled her, as +in moments of high excitement the body sometimes appears to declare its +independence of the will, and to act wholly by its own decisions. She +was aware that she raised her eyes to his, although she would have +given much to avoid his glance; and she knew that it was from what he +read there that he took courage to fold her in his embrace. + +Yet with his arms about her and his piercing kisses upon her face, +Helen felt as if sinking helplessly into a mighty ocean; as if all +struggles must be unavailing, and she could only yield to the +resistless love which engulfed her. + +From this first feeling of powerlessness, however, her strong nature +sprang with a sharp recoil. She was too noble to surrender without a +struggle. She would not even think whether she loved this man; that +might be considered upon some safe vantage ground; now all energy must +be concentrated upon escaping from the deadly peril in which she found +herself. + +Helen had freed herself as far as she was able from the marriage bond +which had so galled her, and she was glad to forget that such a tie had +ever existed, but she yet remembered that she was still a wife, and the +kiss of a man not her husband overwhelmed her with shuddering +humiliation and fear. She struggled from her lover's embrace with such +an expression of terror upon her face, that he started back amazed and +grieved. + +He began to stammer confused words of contrition, of sorrow, of love, +and of supplication. + +"How could you!" she gasped. "Oh, leave me!" + +There came into her excited mind a way of escape, upon which, even +though it brought with it a sense of baseness, she seized in despair. + +"Ninitta," she said. "Ninitta!" + +He gave her a look of pain which went to her very heart. He did not +move or answer, but his whole soul seemed to look through his dark eyes +in pitiful appeal. + +"Go," she continued, but in a hurried voice which betrayed her +agitation. "Leave me now. Oh, I cannot bear it!" + +And crushed with pain and shame, she buried her face in her hands and +burst into tears. + +Herman made a step towards her, but instantly she recovered herself, +looking up with swimming eyes and lips that quivered despite her utmost +effort. + +"No," she said, "do not touch me. You must go. I cannot bear another +word. Forgive me," she went on rapidly, as he hesitated, still with +those appealing eyes fixed upon her. "Oh, forgive me, but go." + +He turned slowly and moved towards the door. The broken bas-relief, +with its beautiful mutilated figure caught his eye, and seemed again to +remind him that he had at last a right to speak to Helen, unhampered by +the thought of Ninitta. He looked back as if he would even now disobey +her and plead his love anew. But her eyes refused his prayer before it +could be uttered. He lingered still an instant. + +"I cannot go," he broke out suddenly. "I love you! I must stay! I must +at least have an answer. Do you think a man could kiss you once and +then leave you like this?" + +She shivered as if she felt anew his passionate embrace and shrank from +it. She threw her glance about as to discover some means of escape. The +gesture, the look, overwhelmed him with sudden remorse. He trusted +himself not for a single backward look now, but rushed out of the +studio, leaving her sitting there like the princess of the fairy tale +who overcame the genii only by recourse to immortal fire which consumed +her also. + +Alone in his studio the sculptor strode up and down, struggling with +the emotion which mastered him. He debated with himself whether Helen +loved him or not; yet the more carefully he recalled his interview with +her, the more impossible he found it to determine. But hope plucked +courage out of this very uncertainty, and clung to the belief that had +not Helen in her heart some affection for him, she could not have been +so touched. + +But what of Ninitta? He threw back his head and walked down the studio, +his steps sounding sharply upon the hard cement floor. What of Ninitta? +He had absurdly dallied with his supposed obligations to her long +enough. Now, at least, after this outrage, he repeated to himself, he +was free. He was at liberty now--if indeed he had not always been--to +consider what he owed to himself; what to the woman he loved. + +He recalled the hot words he had spoken to the model earlier in the +afternoon when the anger of discovery was fresh upon him, and he felt a +pang of self-reproach. He could not but know how poignant to Ninitta +must be the grief of giving him up, although he assured himself that in +the long years of separation she must have become accustomed to live +without him, and that her grief would be rather fancied than real. Yet +he was too tender-hearted to be wholly at ease after all his reasoning. +He at last started out to find Ninitta, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps +to cast her off forever. At least to come to some definite conclusion +of their doubtful relations. + +But Ninitta was not to be found. She was not in her attic; nor did she +return that night, nor the next day, nor yet the following; and it was +to tell of the model's disappearance, and to ask aid in tracing her, +that Herman had wished to speak to Helen at the Fenton's reception. + + + + +XXII. + +UPON A CHURCH BENCH. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--3. + + +Herman did not see Helen for several days after the reception, but she +came down to the studio Sunday afternoon to begin the repairing of her +mutilated bas-relief. The sculptor heard her step pass his door, and +felt a thrill at the sound for which he had longingly waited every +waking hour since he had heard Helen go out upon the night of Ninitta's +disappearance. + +He waited what seemed to him a long time, forcing himself to perform +certain trifling things needful in the studio, yet Mrs. Greyson had +only been able to get fairly to work before she heard his footstep, and +then his tap upon her door. + +He entered the studio almost hesitatingly, and after the usual +greetings stood looking gravely at the disfigured clay. + +"I began to think you were never coming to restore it," he remarked, +breaking at last the silence. + +"I could not bear to touch it," she returned, not caring to confess +that she had also wished to avoid him until time should have restored +his usual self-control. "But I determined yesterday to begin this +morning, only strangely enough I went to church for the first time +since I came from Europe." + +"Ah!" returned Herman smiling. "I often go to church when I am not too +busy." + +"I hardly supposed that a Pagan was guilty of going to any church where +he could not worship Pasht." + +"One can worship whatever deity he pleases in whatever temple, I +suppose," was his rejoinder. "I'm catholic in my tastes. I do not so +much mind what people worship, if they are only sincere about it." + +"It must be a great comfort to believe every thing, if one only could." + +"There is often danger," he observed, "that we assume it to be a +weakness to believe any thing." + +"It is, I'm afraid," replied she, turning her face from him and +seemingly intent upon her modeling. + +"At least we believe in work," Herman answered, "else we are not +artists. You certainly find joy and support in your art." + +"Yes," Helen said with a sigh; "but I fancy the joy of creation, great +as it is, can never be so satisfying to a woman as to a man. It is +humiliating to confess--or it is presumptuous to boast, I am not sure +which--but a woman is never so fully an artist as a man. He is in great +moments all artist; but a woman is never able to lay herself aside even +in her most imaginative moods." + +"I cannot think you wholly right," her master returned smiling; "but to +go back a little, at least faith is woman's peculiar province and +prerogative. We seem nowadays to pride ourselves upon being superior to +belief in any thing; but it is really a poor enough hypocrisy. If we +really believed nothing, should we ever give up a single selfish desire +or combat any impulse that seizes us. For my part, I am glad to find +men better than their professions. But this," he added with his genial +smile, "is more of a sermon, very likely, than you heard at church." + +"I at least agree with it better than the one I heard at church this +morning. The preacher patronized the Deity so that he shocked me." + +"That troubles me at church," Herman assented; "preachers are so +irreverent." + +Helen stepped back to observe the effects of the work she was doing. + +"Do you think," she ventured, "that it would be possible for me to +induce Ninitta to pose again for the May? If I told her that I am not +angry, that I understand, and that----" + +"But Ninitta is gone!" exclaimed the sculptor, suddenly recalled to +present difficulties. "I have not been able to find her since the day +she did this." + +"Gone!" echoed Helen in dismay; "and you cannot find her?" + +Herman related in detail the steps he had taken to trace Ninitta, all +of which had thus far proved unavailing. He had endeavored to avoid +publicity, but he already began to fear that it would be necessary to +call detectives to his aid. + +"Not yet," Helen said. "Let me try first. Have you seen Mr. Fenton?" + +"No; why? I have been very cautious. I have told nobody but Fred +Rangely." + +Helen reflected a moment. Her woman's instinct told her that it was not +likely Ninitta would put any great distance between herself and the +sculptor. The model could have but few acquaintances in the city, and +as she would need support it seemed probable she might try posing for +some of the artists. As this thought crossed her mind, Helen remembered +that Ninitta had promised to pose for Fenton when no longer wanted for +the has-relief. It was therefore possible that Fenton might know +something of the whereabouts of the missing girl; and in any case Helen +had been so used to consulting the artist in any perplexity, that it +was but natural for her thoughts to turn to him now. + +"Let me try," she repeated. "It will be less likely to excite talk if I +look for her; she was my model. Trust the search to me for a day or +two." + +He was only too glad to do so; glad to be released from the burden of +anxiety, as by virtue of some subtle faith in Mrs. Greyson he was; glad +of any thing in which he might obey her; glad above all of any bond of +common interest which might draw them nearer to each other, even if it +were search for the woman who stood between them. + +On her way homeward Helen went into Studio Building, but before she had +climbed half way to Fenton's room, she encountered Dr. Ashton. + +"It is of no use," was his greeting. "He isn't in. His wife has +probably taken him to church." + +"He was at church this morning," Helen answered, putting her hand into +the one Dr. Ashton extended. "I saw him." + +"Did you go to church? What a lark." + +"It was rather a lark," she assented; "only I got wretchedly blue +before the service was done." + +"What church was it? Mrs. Fenton looks as if she'd poise dizzily on +high church altitudes like the angel on St. Angelo." + +"So she does; she goes to the Nativity." + +"How did Arthur look?" + +"Amused at first; then bored; then cross; and finally, when the sermon +was well under way, indignant." + +"And his wife?" + +"His wife, Will," Helen said with a sudden enthusiasm, "looked like a +saint. She really believes all these fables. I wish I did." + +"It will be some fun to watch Arthur's conversion and backsliding," Dr. +Ashton observed, "if he really gets far enough along to be able to +backslide. Where are you going?" + +"To see Arthur. I have an errand." + +"Do you object to my walking with you?" he asked with a deference rare +enough to attract her notice. + +The sun was setting, and the trees on the Common, as yet showing but +faintest signs of coming buds, stood out against the saffron sky. The +long shadows stretched softly over the dull ground, while every slight +prominence was gilded and transfigured by the golden glow which flooded +from the west. The atmosphere had that peculiar brilliancy +characteristic of the season, while the cool and bracing air was full +of that champagne-like exhilaration in which lies at once the +fascination and the fatality of the New England climate. + +It was some time before either broke the silence. + +"How I wish," at length began Helen wistfully. + +"That shows," spoke her husband, as she left the sentence unfinished, +"that you are still under forty. When you have quadrupled your decades +you'll thank your stars for deliverances and ask for nothing more." + +"When I get to that stage, then," she returned, "I'll take poison." + +"Is that a hint?" + +"Life is bad enough now," she continued without heeding the +interruption, "but better a bitter savor than none at all." + +"You should devote yourself to cultivating the approval of conscience +as I do. I only do what I think to be right, you know." + +"But think right whatever you do." + +"Not quite that," returned the Doctor with a laugh, "but the approval +of my conscience--or of my reason, which stands in its place--is +necessary to my happiness, so I change my principles whenever my acts +don't accord with them." + +"So do a great many persons," she responded; "perhaps most of us, for +that matter, only we are seldom honest enough to own it." + +"By the way," queried her companion, as they approached her +destination, "how came Mrs. Fenton so quickly domesticated at the +Church of the Nativity?" + +"There is a young man there--a deacon or a monk; I never know these +high church terms; they are usually faded out pieces of Romanism--that +once wrote an article which enjoyed the honor of being interred in the +Princeton Review when her uncle was one of its editors." + +They reached the doorsteps and Dr. Ashton said good-by. Then he turned +back. + +"By the by," he said. "I walked up with you to make you invite me to +supper again. I enjoyed the last time very much." + +"Did you?" returned his wife, rather carelessly. "Come to-morrow--no, +not until Thursday night." + +"Very well. I am to dine here then, and I'll come and give you an +account of my visit." + + + + +XXIII. + +HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; i.--I. + + +The Fentons were just going to dinner when Helen arrived, and she was +persuaded to dine with them. She was not without some curiosity to +observe her friend in his new relations, and she also found herself +attracted by Edith, although the two women had apparently little in +common. + +The talk at dinner flowed on easily enough, Arthur conversing in the +strain which of old Helen had been pleased to call "amiable," and which +fretted her by being conventional and not wholly sincere. She liked the +artist best when he spoke without restraint, even though she might not +agree with his extravagances and often detected a trace of +artificiality in his clever epigrams. It seemed to her that the whole +tendency of Edith's influence upon her husband was towards restraint, +yet she could not be sure whether the ultimate result upon Fenton's +character might not be beneficial. + +"It depends upon Arthur himself," Helen mused. "If he is strong enough +to endure the struggle of adapting his honest belief to her honest +belief, he will be the better for it. I hope his love of ease will not +make him evade the difficulty. It never used to occur to me how little +I really know Arthur, so that I cannot tell how this will be." + +When the host was enjoying his after dinner cigar, which by especial +indulgence upon the part of Edith he was allowed to smoke in the +parlor, Helen disclosed the object of her visit. + +"Do you remember," she asked, "that model who posed for my May, and was +to come to you next week?" + +"Ninitta? Of course. What of her?" + +"That is precisely what I wish to find out," she responded. "She has +changed her address, and I thought it possible you might know something +of her whereabouts." + +"I have not seen her since the morning when she came into your studio. +Doesn't Herman know?" + +"The truth is," Helen said slowly, weighing her words with regard to +their effect upon Edith, "that she has run away, and we do not know +what has become of her. She went off in a rage, and I am troubled about +her." + +"Is she the Italian you spoke of, Arthur?" interrupted Mrs. Fenton in +her soft voice. "What is she like?" + +"Yes; a black-haired, splendidly shaped girl with piercing black eyes." + +"I think I know where she is," Edith said quietly. + +"You?" the others asked in one breath. + +"You see," Mrs. Fenton explained, turning towards Helen, "I have made +rather a plunge into charity work. Of course I meant to do something, +but I hardly expected to begin quite so soon. But Mr. Candish is my +rector, and he came for me yesterday to go to an Italian family that +cannot speak English well. The children have just been put into our +schools, but they have not advanced very far as yet. Their teacher +asked Mr. Candish to do something for them; they are wretchedly poor. I +wish you could see the place, Mrs. Greyson. Eight people in a room not +so large as this, and such poverty as you could hardly imagine. Yet +these people had taken in another. The mother goes about selling fruit, +and she happened to speak to this girl that I think is Ninitta in her +own language one night. The girl had been wandering about in the cold, +not knowing where to go, and I suppose the sound of her own tongue +touched her heart. Poor thing; she would not speak a word to me. How +strange that I should chance to find her." + +"Thank heaven she is safe," was Helen's inward exclamation. Aloud she +said: "But what is she doing?" + +"Nothing," Edith answered. "She seems to have had a little money, so +that she can pay the family something, and she has helped to take care +of the children. They are Catholics, naturally, and not in Mr. +Candish's parish; but they do not seem to have much religion of any +kind, and keep clear of the priest for some reason." + +"My wife will know more of the North End in a month," Arthur observed +with an effort at good humor which did not wholly conceal from Helen a +trace of annoyance, "than I should in six years. I wonder she can bear +to go into such dirty places. Of course philanthropy is all very well, +but I'd rather take it after it has been disinfected." + +The bitterness in his tone jarred upon Helen. She felt a pang at his +evident dissatisfaction with his wife's views, his want of harmony with +his new surroundings. + +"Arthur must be disciplined," Mrs. Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he +once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, +he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, if from nothing else." + +"Happy!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily. "Does one ever expect to be +happy nowadays? Happiness went out of fashion with our grandmothers' +bonnets." + +"In this world," Edith answered, without any trace in her voice of the +reproof which Helen half expected, "perhaps you are right. The age is +too restless and skeptical for happiness here; but that makes me long +the more for it hereafter." + +"But even in a future life," returned Helen, "I can hardly expect to be +happy, since I shall still be myself." + +"Happiness," was Mrs. Fenton's reply, "is a question of harmony with +surroundings, is it not? And your surroundings in the other life may be +such that you cannot but be happy." + +"No more theology, please," interposed Arthur. "You forget, Edith, that +I have been to church to-day, and too much piety at once might impair +my spiritual digestion forever." + +A perception that the flippancy of his tone shocked his wife, made +Helen turn the conversation again to Ninitta, arranging to go with Mrs. +Fenton in the morning to find the missing girl. + +They fell into silence after this, the twilight deepening until only +the glow of the fire lighted the room. Edith went to the piano and +played a bit of Mozart, wandering off then into the hymn-tunes which +she loved and which were familiar in all orthodox homes of the last +generation: plaintive _Olmutz_ and stately _Geneva_, aspiring +_Amsterdam_ and resonant _St. Martin's_, placid _Boylston_ and grand +_Hamburg, Nuremburg, Benevento, Turner_ and _Old Hundred_; the tunes +of our fathers, the melodies which embody the spirit of the old time +New England Sabbath, a day heavy, constrained and narrow, it may be; +but, too, a day calm, unworldly and pure. + +Arthur's cigar was finished, and he had fallen into a deep reverie, +looking into the coals. He recalled his conversations with Helen before +his marriage. He wondered whether his acquiescence in the limitations +of his present condition, his yielding to his wife's social and +religious views, was an advance or a deterioration. These pious tunes +jarred upon his mood, and he was glad when his wife left the +instrument. His Bohemian instinct stirred within him, and taunted the +ease-loving quality of his nature which put him in subjection to that +which he believed no more now than in the days when he was the most +sharp-spoken of the Pagans. A wave of disgust and self-loathing swept +over him. He turned abruptly in the dusk toward Helen. + +"Sing to us," he said. "Edith has never heard you." + +But Helen had been moved by the melodies, which came to her as an echo +from her childhood. She understood the half-peremptory accent in +Arthur's voice to which she had so often yielded, but to which she +would not now submit. + +"No," she answered. "How can you ask me. My barbaric chant would be +wholly out of keeping here. Some other time I shall be glad to sing for +Mrs. Fenton; now I must go home." + + + + +XXIV. + +IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING. + I. Henry IV.; v.--I. + + +Notwithstanding her previous visit, Mrs. Fenton found it no easy matter +to guide Helen to the place where Ninitta had taken refuge. + +The poorer classes of foreigners in any city are led by similarity of +language and occupations to gather into neighborhoods according to +their nationality, and the Italians are especially clannish. The +fruit-venders and organ-grinders form separate colonies, each +distinguished by the peculiarities incident to the calling of its +inhabitants, the crooked courts in the fruit-sellers' neighborhood +being chiefly marked to outward observance by the number of two-wheeled +hand-carts which, out of business hours, are crowded together there. + +Ninitta was found in a room tolerably clean for that portion of the +city, the old fruit woman who was its mistress having retained more of +the tidiness of thrifty peasant ancestors than most of her class. One +room was made to accommodate the mother and seven children, and during +the absence of the former from home the premises were left in charge of +a girl just entering her teens, who, when Helen and Edith reached the +place, was engaged in preparing the family dinner of maccaroni. The +younger members of the family had just returned from school, and were +noisily clamoring for their share, and all together relating the +incidents of the day. + +Upon a bed in one corner lay the object of their search, her face +flushed, her hair disordered, her eyes wild and vacant. To all +appearances she was in a high fever, and she took no heed of Edith, who +approached the bed and spoke to her. At the sound of Mrs. Greyson's +voice, however, the sick girl gave a cry and raised herself into a +sitting posture. + +"No, no!" she exclaimed in Italian, excitedly, "I will not! I will +not!" + +Helen drew off her gloves and sat down upon the dingy bed beside +Ninitta, regarding her with pitying eyes. + +"You shall not," she answered, in the girl's own language. "You need do +nothing but what you choose." + +The soft tone seemed to calm Ninitta. She allowed Helen to arrange the +soiled and crumpled pillows, and yielded when her self-constituted +nurse wished her to lie down again. The latter procured a bowl of +water, and with her handkerchief bathed the sick girl's face, soothing +her with womanly touches which waked in Edith a new feeling of sympathy +and tenderness. Mrs. Greyson's white fingers, contrasting strongly with +the Italian's clear dark skin, smoothed the tangled hair from the hot +forehead, and all the while her rich, pure voice murmured comforting +words, of little meaning in themselves, perhaps, but sweet with the +sympathy and womanhood which spoke through them. + +Edith meanwhile was not idle. She applied herself to hushing the +boisterous children, and to bringing something like quiet out of the +tumult of the crowded room. She assisted the girl with her maccaroni, +gravely listening to the principles which governed its equitable +distribution, with her own hands giving the grimy little children the +share belonging to each. An air of comfort seemed to come over the +frowsy room after Edith had quietly set a chair straight here, picked +up something from the floor there, and arranged the ragged shade at the +window. Even the little Italians, half barbarians as they were, felt +the change, and were more subdued. + +Ninitta, too, was calmed and soothed, and, with Helen's cool hand upon +her hot brow, she sank presently into a drowse. + +"Mrs. Fenton," Helen whispered, fanning her sleeping patient, "Ninitta +cannot remain here. I must take her home with me. I think she had +better run the risk of being moved than to be ill in this crowded +room." + +"But," remonstrated Edith, somewhat aghast at this summary procedure, +"you do not even know what is the matter with her." + +"No," Helen returned lightly, "but I shall probably discover." + +"Not by finding it something contagious, I hope," her friend said, +laying her hand upon Mrs. Greyson's forehead with a slight, caressing +touch. + +"Can you get me a hack?" Helen asked of the girl who kept the house. + +But the girl had no idea how to obtain one of those vehicles, which she +had been accustomed to see driving about with a certain awe, but +without the hope of ever being able to do more than admire them from a +distance, unless, indeed, she should have the great good fortune of +going to a funeral, when perhaps she might even ride in one, as did +little Sally McMann of the next court, when her mother died. Mrs. +Fenton therefore went herself for the carriage, finding remonstrance in +vain to change her companion's decision. + +During her absence Ninitta awakened, and, while seeming more rational, +was less quiet than before. She repulsed her visitor with angry looks +and muttered defiance. Knowing perfectly well the cause of the girl's +agitation, Helen knew, also, that it was best to go directly to the +root of the matter, and she did so unshrinkingly. + +"You are wrong," she said in Ninitta's ear. "It is you he loves. You +are to go home with me because he wishes it." + +At first the sick girl seemed to gather no meaning from these words, +but as Helen repeated the assurance again and again, in different +phrases and with Herman's name, she became passive, as if she at least +caught the spirit if not the actual significance. + +Mrs. Fenton had some difficulty in finding a carriage, and by the time +she returned Ninitta had yielded herself submissively to Helen's +guidance. + +Mrs. Greyson saw that her charge was carefully protected against the +cold, a matter which the mildness of the day rendered easy, and, +supported by the two ladies, the model was able to walk down stairs to +the carriage. + +During the drive homeward Helen lay back thinking hotly, and flushed +with excitement. Ninitta sank into a doze, and Mrs. Fenton sat looking +at her friend with the air of one who has discovered in an acquaintance +characteristics before wholly unsuspected. She hesitated a little, and +then, mastering her shyness, she bent forward and kissed Helen's hand. + +The other submitted in silence. Indeed, the exaltation of her mood +seemed to lift her above her surroundings so that she felt a strange +remoteness from her companion. Yet she was conscious of a vague twinge +of annoyance at Edith's act, although she could neither have excused +nor defined the feeling. Mrs. Fenton not infrequently aroused in her a +curious mingling of attraction and repulsion; and it was under the +influence of the latter that she answered brusquely her friend's next +remark. + +"How did you quiet Ninitta?" Edith asked. + +"By telling her lies," returned Helen wearily and laconically. + +"What!" + +"She is in no condition to be dealt with rationally," continued Mrs. +Greyson, in a tone explanatory, but in no way defensive, "so I said +whatever would soothe her." + +Edith sat in silent dismay. Apparently the woman before her, by whose +generous self-forgetfulness she had been touched, was perfectly +untroubled by the idea of speaking a falsehood, a state of mind so +utterly beyond Edith's experience as to be incomprehensible to her. She +could not bring herself to remonstrate, but it pained her that such +philanthropy should be stained by what she considered so wrong. + +Mrs. Fenton was perhaps equally mistaken in her opinion of Helen's +regard for truth and of her philanthropy. Mrs. Greyson had a deep +repugnance to falsehood, and Arthur Fenton had often good-humoredly +jeered at what he called her Puritanic scrupulousness in this respect. +On an occasion such as at present, however, the use of an untruth would +cause her not even a second thought, her reason so strongly supporting +her course as even to overcome her instincts; a fact which a moralist +might deplore but which still remains a fact. + +Her philanthropy, upon the other hand, although seeming to Edith so +disinterested, was largely instigated by a desire to aid Grant Herman. +Just what she wished or expected him to do, she could not have told, +her actions being no more regulated by strict logic than those of most +women; but she felt that it was the office of friendship to see, if +possible, that no harm came to the Italian through the jealousy which +both herself and Herman knew to be but too well founded. She determined +to take Ninitta home and do for her all that was necessary, in order +that the sculptor be spared the remorse which would pursue him if harm +came to his old betrothed. She was not without a secret feeling, +moreover, scarcely acknowledged to herself, that she owed some +reparation to the girl whose lover's heart she had won, no matter how +undesignedly. + +Reaching home, she got Ninitta to bed and sent for Dr. Ashton. Then she +dispatched a note to Grant Herman, saying: + +"Ninitta is with me; give yourself no uneasiness." + + + + +XXV. + +THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME. + +Measure for Measure; iv.--4. + + +Ninitta's illness proved after all very slight. So slight, indeed, that +Dr. Ashton, calling in on his way to dine with the Fentons Thursday +evening, found her gone. She had insisted upon returning to her attic, +although Helen had not allowed her to depart without promising not to +abscond a second time. + +Ninitta was grateful to Mrs. Greyson with all the ardor of her +passionate southern heart. She did not, it is true, understand the +relations between Herman and Helen, but even her jealousy was lost in +the gratitude she felt for the beautiful woman who had cared for her, +and it is not unlikely saved her from a dangerous illness. It did not +seem possible to the undisciplined Italian, versed only in crude, +simple emotions, that a woman who was her rival could treat her with +tenderness. She accepted Helen's kindness as indisputable proof that +the latter did not love the sculptor, a conclusion which the premises +scarcely warranted. She volunteered to pose again, and Mrs. Greyson, +thinking it well to keep the girl under her influence, and desiring a +return to at least the semblance of the peaceful existence preceding +the stormy episode just ended, eagerly accepted this offer, only +stipulating that the model should undertake nothing until she was +really well able. + +"I shall come back to supper," Dr. Ashton said, as he left his wife. "I +have half a mind not to go to Fenton's; only it amuses me to watch the +fellow's degeneration." + +"It never amuses me to watch any degradation," she returned gravely. +"How do you know he is degenerating? If you mean by following his wife, +why, they may be right after all, and what we call superstition the +veriest truth." + +"Of course," answered he. "I never pretended to administer the +exclusive mysteries of truth; but it is always a degradation to yield +to personal influence at the expense of conviction. Arthur is as much +of a heathen to-day as he ever was, only he is too fond of comfort to +have the courage of his opinions." + +Helen sighed. + +"Truth to me," she said thoughtfully, "is whatever one sincerely +believes; I cannot conceive of any other standard. One man's truth is +often another's falsehood." + +"You are as dull as a preface to-night, Helen; what carking care is +gnawing at your vitals?" + +"Nothing in particular. A certain melancholy is befitting a widow, you +know, and that's what I am supposed to be." + +"On the contrary there is a certain vivacity about the word widow to my +mind." + +"Your experience has been wider than mine. I am aware that I am too +much given to vast moral reflections, but you provoke them." + +"I am sorry to provoke you," he said gayly. "Forgive me before supper +time; who knows what rich experiences I may have between now and then. +Good-by." + +As he walked toward his appointment, could Dr. Ashton's vision have +reached to the house whither he was going, he would have seen Arthur +Fenton and his wife sitting together before an open fire awaiting their +guest. The artist was showing Edith a portfolio of sketches by foreign +painters, which he had brought from his studio. + +"What a strange uncanny thing this is," he remarked, holding one up. +"It is just like Frontier; I never saw any thing more characteristic. I +wonder you got so few of his tricks, Edith, while you studied with +him." + +"He always repelled me. I was afraid of him. Where did you get this +sketch?" + +"Dr. Ashton gave it to me." + +"Dr. Ashton!" + +"Yes; when he was in Paris, both he and his wife were intimate with +Frontier. Or at least Will was." + +"Oh, Arthur!" + +She leaned forward in her chair, her always pale face assuming a new +pallor. Laying her hand upon her husband's, she asked in a quick, +excited manner: + +"Do you know how Frontier died?" + +"I know he died suddenly; now you speak of it, I have an idea it was a +case of _felo de se_. You know I was in Munich at the time." + +"Arthur," Edith said earnestly, "I have never told even you; but I saw +Frontier die. I had a pass-key to his studio, and his private rooms +were just behind it. That night I went in on my way from dinner--Uncle +Peter and I had been dining together, and I left him at the door with +the carriage--after a study I'd forgotten. We were going to Rome the +next morning, and I didn't want to leave it. The picture was at the +further end of the studio, and as I went down the room I heard voices +and saw that Frontier's door was open. He sat at a table with a tiny +wine-glass in his hand. A man who stood back to me said, just as I came +within hearing: 'It is none of my affair, and I shall not interfere; +but you'll allow me to advise you not to be rash.' I could not hear +Frontier's answer, partly because I paid no attention, of course never +suspecting the truth. But as I went towards my easel, Frontier, hearing +the noise, I suppose, and afraid of being interrupted, caught up the +glass and drank what was in it. The other man sprang forward just in +time to catch him as he fell back, and it suddenly came over me that he +was taking poison. I cried out and ran into the room, but it seemed +only an instant before it vas all over. Oh, it was terrible, Arthur, +terrible!" + +She covered her agitated face with her hands, as if to shut out the +vision which rose before her. Her husband sat in silent astonishment, a +conviction growing in his mind of whom the other witness of Frontier's +death must have been. + +"Arthur," Edith broke out suddenly, "that man was no better than a +murderer. He let Frontier kill himself. When I cried out, 'Oh, why +didn't you stop him!' he said as coolly as if I had asked the most +trivial question, 'Why should I? What right had I to interfere?' It was +terrible! He seemed to me a perfect fiend!" + +"It was--who was it?" demanded her husband, a name almost escaping him +in his excitement. + +"It was Dr. Ashton; the man who is coming to sit down at your table +to-night. Arthur, I cannot meet him! I knew when he came to our +reception that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where. There +is his ring now. Let me get by you!" + +"But where are you going?" Fenton asked in amazement. + +"To my room. Any where to get out of his way." + +"But what shall I tell him?" + +"The truth; that I will not sit down to eat with a murderer." + +She vanished from the room, leaving her husband alone. Dr. Ashton's +step was already upon the stair, and however keenly Mrs. Fenton might +feel the wickedness of the Doctor in not preventing Frontier's +self-destruction, the action was too strictly in accord with Arthur's +own views to allow of his condemning it. His friend found him in a +state of confusion which instantly connected itself in the guest's mind +with the non-appearance of Edith, an impression which was strengthened +by the lameness of the excuses tendered for her absence. Dr. Ashton not +unnaturally concluded that he had just escaped stumbling upon a family +quarrel. He accepted whatever his host chose to say, and the two +proceeded rather gloomily to dinner. + +In Arthur's mind there sprang an irritation against both his wife and +his friend. His instincts were all protective, that term including +comfort as well as self-preservation. He was intensely annoyed at his +wife's attitude, and began to vent his spleen in cynical speeches, +which since his marriage had been rare with him. + +"Christian grace," he declared, "is exactly like milk; excellent and +nourishing while it is fresh, but hard to get pure, and even then sure +to sour." + +"Say something more original if you are cross, Arthur," observed his +friend good humoredly. "What is the matter? Is it a new rug or a +Japanese bronze you are dying for?" + +"Hang rugs and bronzes," retorted Arthur, with a vicious determination +to be ill-natured. "If I can get the necessities of life, I am lucky." + +"Nonsense," was the reply. "It isn't that. The lack of the necessities +of life makes a man sad; it is the lack of luxuries that makes him +cynical." + +Dr. Ashton was perfectly right in his inward comment that Fenton was +secretly regretting his marriage. This was the thought that filled +Arthur's mind. It was true he had had no absolute disagreement with his +wife, although it is not impossible that it might have come to this, +had a delay in the guest's arrival allowed time. But it filled the +husband with an unreasoning rage that Edith presumed to establish so +strict a code of morals. He felt that her position as his wife demanded +more conformity to his standards. Why need she trouble herself about +that which did not concern her, and sit in such lofty judgment upon the +morals of her neighbors? Did she propose keeping Dr. Ashton's +conscience as well as her own--and his? Certainly those whom the +husband found worthy his friendship it ill became the wife to +stigmatize and avoid. He sat moodily tearing his fish in pieces instead +of eating; for the moment wholly forgetting his duty as host. + +"If you'll pardon my mentioning it," Dr. Ashton said at length, "you +are about as cheerful company as a death's head. You are so melancholy +that I am tempted to fling in your face one of my old epigrams; that +love is a gay young bachelor who can never be persuaded to marry and +settle down." + +The other laughed and made an effort to shake off his gloom; but with +so little success that his guest resolved to escape at the earliest +moment possible. Something in Fenton's forced talk, however, attracted +Dr. Ashton's attention. + +"My wife was a pupil of Frontier." + +The simple phrase, which had escaped Arthur's lips because it had been +in his mind not to allude to this fact, might have gone unnoticed had +not the speaker himself so strongly felt the shock of disclosure as to +show sudden confusion. The whole matter was at once clear to Dr. +Ashton, who having recognized Edith at the reception, had been prepared +for identification in his own turn. + +"So that," he observed calmly, "is the reason Mrs. Fenton does not dine +with us to-night. I knew she was sure to recognize me sooner or later; +but as I had no motive for concealing this matter, on the other hand I +had no reason for recalling so unpleasant a circumstance to her mind." + +There was a pause of a moment, and then the Doctor continued: + +"I think Frontier was rather foolish. I told him so. A charming little +Hungarian girl of whom he was fond, had left him to follow the fortunes +of a Polish Count, or something of the sort. I do not see why a man +should kill himself for so trifling a thing as a woman; but if he chose +to, I am not one of those officious persons who feel justified in +interfering with any private act they don't happen to approve. I +certainly should resent such impertinent intrusion into my own +affairs." + +"And I," assented Arthur doggedly; "but my wife----" + +"Certainly; I understand. Mrs. Fenton says hard things of me because I +would not rob poor Frontier of what little comfort he could get from +dying. Very well; I will not offend her by my presence. Only she is +setting herself a hard task in attempting to treat people according to +their conservatism. In these days the sheep and goats have come to be +so much alike in appearance, that I scarcely see how a mere mortal is +to distinguish between them. My own case I settle for her by avoiding +her house." + +"But this is my house," protested Arthur, intensely chagrined. + +"No," his guest replied, still smiling and moving toward the door. "It +is the nest you have built for your love and your--regeneration! Good +night." + + + + +XXVI. + +THERE BEGINS CONFUSION. + I Henry VI.; iv.--i. + + +Alone in her own room, Edith relieved her overwrought feelings by a +burst of tears, brief, indeed, but bitter. Like her husband, she felt +that this incident, although not assuming the guise of a quarrel, was +an opening wedge in the unity of their affection. Unlike Arthur, +however, she thought of it with self-reproach and misgiving. She did +not for an instant consider the possibility of having taken a different +position in regard to Dr. Ashton, yet in a womanly, illogical way, she +felt that she should have learned her husband's wishes before so +vehemently declaring her own views. + +She heard the artist and his guest go in to dinner, and the thought +flashed upon her that this was the first time her husband had dined +without her since their marriage. She wondered if he remembered it, +and, remembering, regretted. She longed for companionship, for some +friend into whose sympathetic ear she could pour her story, from whom +she might ask advice. She reflected sadly how far she was removed from +her intimate friends. Of her new acquaintances many had been most kind +to her, but towards none of them, not even to her relatives, had she +been so strongly drawn as to wish now to go to them for confidence and +sympathy; unless, came a second thought, it were Mrs. Greyson. She was +a widow, Edith reflected, and had evidently suffered much, while the +strength of her character was evident from her dealing with the Italian +girl. It would be no disloyalty to go to her; there had been no words +spoken between husband and wife which could not be told a friend, and +Edith felt that she needed the advice of a woman more versed in the +intricacies of life than herself. + +She dressed herself for walking, and slipped noiselessly out of the +house. + +Mrs. Greyson was at dinner, and was naturally surprised at seeing her +caller, but she had both too much tact and too much breeding to ask +explanations. + +"I do hope you have not dined," she said. "I am so much alone that it +is a perfect delight to me to have company. My dinner is a little like +a picnic, but if you will only consider how great a favor you are doing +me by sharing it, the consciousness of philanthropy ought to make it +palatable." + +Neither lady mentioned Arthur, although his name was uppermost in the +thoughts of both. They sat down together in Helen's tiny dining-room, +and served by her only maid, had a charming meal. The hostess exerted +herself to entertain her guest, wisely judging that what Edith said in +calmness she would be far less likely to regret than words uttered in +the unguarded moments of her excitement. She told Mrs. Fenton stories +of her studio life both in Boston and abroad, she led Edith on to speak +of her own travels and experiences, until the latter almost forgot that +she was dining in one house and her husband in another. It was not +until the coffee was reached, coffee made as only Helen could make it, +that the subject of the visit was really broached. + +"How is Mr. Fenton?" Helen asked deliberately, believing the time had +come for such a question. + +The face of the other fell. She experienced a pang at the consciousness +of having been gay and happy, forgetful of her husband and her trouble. + +"He is well," she answered falteringly. + +"Why did you not bring him with you?" continued Mrs. Greyson lightly, +yet with a secret determination to know the cause of her guest's +evident disturbance. + +"He did not know I was coming," Edith responded in a low voice. "That +is what I came to talk about. I thought you might understand; but it +involves a third person, and perhaps I ought not to tell you. I am +sure, though," she went on, gaining confidence now that the ice was +broken, "that I can trust you. A friend of Arthur's came to dine +to-night, and just as the door-bell rang, I found him to be the man I +once saw commit murder in Paris." + +"Murder!" exclaimed Helen, turning white. "Commit murder?" + +"Consent to it," corrected Edith, unconsciously a little pleased to +have produced so great an effect upon her usually self-possessed +friend. "He looked on while Frontier took poison, without trying to +prevent him." + +"But that," Mrs. Greyson said slowly, "is hardly the same thing as +murder." + +"It is quite as bad," Edith protested earnestly. "It makes me shudder +to think of his dining alone with Arthur at this moment. Who knows what +might happen!" + +"Nothing tragic, I think," Helen replied smiling. "He does not go about +with pistols in his belt, I suppose.' + +"It is awful to me," Edith continued, with increasing excitement, too +much stirred to notice the sarcasm. "I told Arthur I could not sit down +with a murderer, and just at that moment we heard his step, and I ran +away upstairs; and then I felt dreadfully, and I came to you." + +"I thank you for your confidence. But what do you mean to do? What will +Arthur tell him?" + +"The truth, I hope." + +"He is scarcely likely to say to the guest he has himself invited that +you think him a murderer," answered her friend, smiling again, "and I +am not sure that he would even look at this quite so severely as you +do." + +"How else can he look at it?" demanded Edith. "How else can any one +look at it? Isn't it murder to take human life, and if one does not +prevent suicide when he might, isn't it the same as if he did it +himself?" + +"We will not get into a discussion," Helen replied gently. "I feel +about it as you do; though I believe very differently. But I see +perfectly well how a man might be strictly honest in thinking that it +was the privilege of any human being to lay aside his life when he is +weary of it; and I do not presume to condemn others for feeling what I +only think I believe." + +"Think you believe!" cried the other in horror. "You do not think you +believe that murder is right?" + +"Assuredly not; but as there are so many related points upon which we +do not agree, would it not be better to talk of this particular case +than of general belief?" + +"But it is impossible for any one to believe as you say," persisted +Edith; "simply impossible. No one can believe that wrong is right." + +"But each has his own standard." + +Against this Edith protested, but Helen returned no answer. She +regretted being involved in such a debate, and resolved to let the +discussion go no further. They sat in silence a moment, and then Edith +again spoke. + +"I do not know what to do," she said. "Of course Arthur cannot know +that man any longer. You were in Paris at the time Frontier died, were +you not? Did you ever know----" + +She broke off suddenly, remembering that she had not intended +disclosing the name of her guest. + +"Dr. Ashton?" Helen returned, fixing her eyes upon her companion, and +unconsciously speaking with a deliberation which gave especial weight +to her words. "Yes; I know him. We went to Paris together." + +"Together! Was he a friend of your husband? How did you know whom I +meant?" + +There was no perceptible pause before Helen answered; but meanwhile she +determined to throw aside all concealment. She could no longer stand +before Arthur Fenton's wife with the humiliation of even a tacit +deception between them. She felt a spirit of defiance rising within +her. Who was this woman that she assumed the right to judge them all by +standards for whose narrowness only contempt was possible! At least she +would rise above all conventional prejudices, and no longer tacitly +ask, as by silence she had done, exemption from the harsh judgments of +Mrs. Fenton's creed. + +Helen was too womanly not to shrink from this disclosure, and she had +been too thoroughly educated in the faith by which Edith lived not to +understand just how her life would appear seen through the latter's +belief. Disconnected with a question relating to the marriage relation +and by implication casting reflection upon her delicacy and even purity +of life as a woman separated from her lawful husband, Helen could have +met with dispassionate reasoning whatever assault Edith made upon her. +This point was too vital, it touched too closely the core of her +woman's nature, and although she retained perfectly her self-control, +there was a pulse of passion in her voice when she spoke. + +"Dr. Ashton," she said unflinchingly, "is my husband." + +"What?" cried Edith. + +"We have not found it convenient to live together," Helen continued, +with increasing calmness, a faint tinge of contempt creeping into her +voice, "and so since my return from Europe I have taken my mother's +name to avoid gossip. Dr. Ashton and I are very good friends still." + +"And did Mr. Fenton know this?" asked the other, very pale. + +"Certainly; although you understand that it is not a matter which we +discuss with the world at large. I pass, I believe, as a widow; though +I have never done or said any thing to give color to that idea." + +It is doubtful if Helen fully comprehended the effect of these words +upon her guest. Every fiber of Edith's being tingled. All her most +sacred principles seemed outraged. She in some remote way felt, +moreover, as if to hear without protest so lax notions of the +responsibilities of marriage was to stain her womanhood and dim the +luster of her modesty. + +"How dared he introduce you to me?" she cried. "You are the wife of a +murderer and you defend his crime; you pretend to be a widow, you +ignore your marriage----" + +"Stop," the hostess said with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. +Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in +seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. +You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have +kept it from your knowledge." + +But Edith made her no answer. She was too much overwhelmed by the +various emotions which the disclosure of the evening had aroused. + +Edith was, from Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but +the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's +vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity +arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and +doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by +its jar the most ordinary affairs of life. + +Edith was pure, high minded, simple souled, and for the rest she was +honest and earnest. Her creeds were vitalized by the warm fervor with +which she clung to them, and what more could be demanded of her? + +She quitted the dining-room, and soon Helen heard the outer door close +behind her. The night gathered, and the lonely woman left behind sat +long in sad reverie, until the door was again opened to admit Dr. +Ashton. + + + + +XXVII. + +WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE. + Hamlet; i.--2. + + +Dr. Ashton came in too full of his own interview with Arthur to notice +particularly if his wife showed signs of agitation. + +"My dear," he said, throwing himself into a chair, "it is at once one +of the latest and the wisest of my reflections that you had better +consider a newly married man as an entire stranger and form his +acquaintance quite from the foundation, wholly unbiased by any notion +you had of him as a bachelor." + +"His wife," responded Helen quietly, "has been dining with me, so I +understand something of the situation. But how did Arthur behave?" + +"Like any husband who does not care to quarrel with his wife even when +he disapproves of her. It is upon that principle that matrimonial +felicity depends. Do you say Mrs. Fenton has been here?" + +"Yes; she came to me for sympathy and I administered it by telling her +that I am your wife." + +"The devil! I beg your pardon; but, Helen, it was precisely because I +knew she was sure to remember this Frontier scrape that I wanted her +not to know. She will be very hard on you." + +"Christianity is always hard," returned she; "but what difference does +it make; it was only a question of time. She is sweet and pure and +good, Will, but her religion holds her in bands stronger than steel. I +couldn't long keep step with one in chains. It might as well come now +as any time." + +Her husband looked at her with evident interest not unmixed with +admiration. + +"She provokes me to do and to say childish things," Helen continued, +"just to shock her. I told her bluntly the other day that I had been +telling a falsehood, and she had the impertinence to look shocked. I am +not sure that I did not go so far as to say I 'lied,' a word that +hardly holds the place in English that it did in the good days of Mrs. +Opie. She would have been reconciled if I had said I told what I hoped +was true." + +"I should have told her," laughed Dr. Ashton, "that I only used truth +as the Egyptians used straw in bricks, the smallest possible quantity +that will hold the rest together." + +"I cannot see why Arthur married her," Helen said musingly. + +"Oh, as to that, an idle man will fall in love with any pretty woman +who will snub him." + +"But Arthur isn't idle, and she doesn't snub him." + +"Very well; he married her because he fell in love for no reason but +the weakness of our sex." + +"Love seems generally to be regarded by the masculine mind in the light +of a weakness." + +"Isn't it?" her husband returned. "Love is the condition of desiring +the impossible, and if that is not a weakness, what becomes of logic?" + +"I am tired of logic," she said, rising abruptly. "I am tired of every +thing. Let us have supper. I want a glass of wine. I am sure I tried to +be kind to Mrs. Fenton. I would have helped her if I could; but how +could I assist her unless she chose to let me, and that, too, knowing +who I am." + +"I never knew you to be other than kind," was the grave reply, which +brought to Helen's cheek a faint flush of pleasure. + +The servant came in with supper, and the slender glasses were filled +with Rhine wine. + +"I could not help thinking," Dr. Ashton said, lifting his glass,--"I +drink to your very good health, my dear--I could not help thinking of +my wedding gift to Arthur, that he asked me for it, I mean." + +"I thought of it, too, when his wife told me the story. It is well she +does not know that of you." + +"Oh, it wouldn't matter," he said carelessly. "She couldn't feel a +greater horror of me than she does already. Do you see the mark of Cain +on my forehead, Helen?" + +"Isn't it droll," she returned, with a smile half pensive, half +humorous, "to feel ourselves suddenly tried by new standards and found +so wanting. I am not sure but dramatic propriety demands that I should +poison Mrs. Fenton. I have that vial, you know." + +"Did you notice the inscription on the vial?" + +"No; is there one?" + +"See for yourself," he answered, refilling his glass. + +She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco +case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and +distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her +place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, +shining upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue +dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her +delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within +these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more +truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him +through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in +speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in +his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He +had determined to speak his passion, but as he looked at his wife +sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay +between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the +tiny cut-glass vial from its velvet bed. + +"How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily +lifting it to her nostrils. + +"Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly. + +"Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off. + +"It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely +stopped." + +She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the glass. + +"'Death foils the gods,'" she read. "Is it one of your own +wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to +Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she +has lost." + +"What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is +pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd +sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant +body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned +reprobate." + +"Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of +destroying your peace of mind." + +"I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind +the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands." + +"Yes," assented the other, "himself." + +She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-glass vial. + +"How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We +become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the +shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the +theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness." + +"That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it +ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of +cheese." + +"There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing +over the table. + +"Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that +fact. "It is of no consequence." + +"Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it." + +She restored the vial to its place, laying the closed case by her +plate, and left the room. The instant the door closed behind her, Dr. +Ashton reached across the table, possessed himself of the vial, +returning the case to its former position. His wife turned just outside +the door, and came back with a meaning smile to take up the empty case +and lock it again in the cabinet. + +"I cannot trust you," she remarked with a smile; "you are too eager to +foil the gods." + +He smiled in return, holding his wine-glass up to the light. + +"There is more where that came from," he said. "You forget my +profession." + +"Of what are you musing so intently?" Helen queried, half an hour +later, while, the supper being ended, her husband was enjoying his +cigar. + +"Of two things which I have to communicate. One is a folly and the +other--or perhaps I should say each--is a misfortune." + +"The folly," returned she, "I forgive; the misfortune I regret. What +are they?" "I am glad you forgive the folly. That gives me boldness to +tell it. I have fallen in love." + +"You, Will! With whom?" + +"That is the madness of it. With my wife." + +"Will!" + +"It is the truth," he went on, half whimsically, but with a certain +ring of earnestness in his tone. "I acknowledge the madness, the poor +taste of a man's falling in love with his own wife, but the fact +stubbornly remains. I have been in love with you for a long time, but I +stood back for Arthur like a good fellow." + +"I never was in love with Arthur," she interrupted. + +"It is no matter," he continued. "The question is, can't you get up a +grain of grace for me, old lady?" + +He leaned over the table, his dark eyes shining as she had never seen +them before. She was fascinated by his gaze; she felt as if the ground +were slipping from beneath her feet, and as though he were casting upon +her an evil spell. A wave of despair swept over her. Must she again +submit to his power; were the old days of bitter bondage to return; was +she nothing but a puppet to his will? + +In this extremity a memory saved her. Unable to withdraw her gaze from +her husband's face, there came to her suddenly the look in the eyes of +Grant Herman that day when he told her his love. The blood surged to +her cheeks, but her calmness returned. + +"It is of no use, Will," she said with gentle firmness. "All that is +past forever between us. We had better not speak of it," she added +wistfully. "I have so few friends that I cannot bear to lose any one of +them." + +"My folly is then my misfortune," he responded, with no appearance of +diminished good humor. "It is the pleasure of the gods to torment me; I +suppose it amuses them. The old Romans were only aping them in their +blood-thirsty sports, and I fancy that is the secret of their +deification, for nothing seems so much to the liking of the gods as to +torment humanity." + +The evident endeavor which the speaker made to appear flippant and at +his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without +fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled +man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She +turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-glass. +Her own life had been too sad for her not to feel some emotion at his +words. She strove to repress the thoughts which made her bosom swell +and heave, yet it was from them her words came when she broke the +silence. + +"It is bitterest to find one's self mistaken. To find that our gods are +only clay like the rest of humanity. I could forgive a friend for +neglect, abuse or any cruelty; but I could never forgive him for +falling below my ideal of him." + +"You do not mean me," he returned placidly, "for of me you never had an +ideal; but waiving that for a moment, I should like to tell you of my +second misfortune--if it isn't to be reckoned a blessing." + +She looked at him without speaking. If this disclosure were but a +repetition in varied form of the other, she had no wish to help him put +it into words. Yet even as this thought passed through her mind, she +fancied she had detected in his tone some new gravity. + +"I've discovered," continued Dr. Ashton, with the same light manner he +had used throughout the interview, "that I have a cancer gayly but with +grim persistency developing under my arm." + +"Oh, Will," Helen cried, clasping her hands, "you are not in earnest!" + +"I assure you it is a very earnest matter with me, and has been for +some time. I might have an operation, I suppose, if it were worth +while; though it is so near the heart that it would be uncomfortably +risky." + +Helen became suddenly calm. The color faded slowly from her cheeks, and +her husband, watching her narrowly, saw her beautiful lips assume a new +expression of firmness and determination. She unconsciously lifted her +head into a more erect carnage. Her eyes were moist and full of +feeling. Slowly in her mind formed a resolve, and with a full knowledge +of the renunciation of self which it involved, she called up all the +nobility of her soul to aid her in living up to it. Creeds were little +to this woman, yet her life was formed upon the principles which give +to creeds their stability, and by which the moral is removed from the +animal. + +"Will," she at length said, slowly and gravely, "could it not be +arranged for me to live with you? You did not tell me you were fond of +me without having thought out the possibilities." + +"I should have hesitated to ask so much," was his reply, "even of your +love; I shall certainly not take it of your pity." + +"My pity?" she murmured, not raising her eyes. "What do you mean?" + +"You know. You cannot think me so dull as not to see that your proffer +comes not from affection, but from generosity. I thank you, but I will +accept no sacrifices." + +He rose as he spoke, and put out his hand. + +"I must be going," he said in an indifferent tone. "I have letters to +write that must be mailed by midnight. I am not more than half as bad, +Helen, as you have always persisted in thinking. I never made very +profound pretensions, but I've treated every body squarely from my own +point of view. If they have regarded my blessings as curses, it wasn't +my fault, and I am not sufficiently hypocritical to pretend that I +think it was. Good night." + +He gave her hand a warmer and more lingering pressure than usual. + +"I've had a very pleasant evening," he added, "despite the admixture of +truth. Young people don't like any bitters, but we old, shattered +wrecks need a dash of it in the wine of life to help digestion. Good +night." + + + + +XXVIII. + +LIKE COVERED FIRE. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--I. + + +That night marked an epoch in the married life of Arthur and Edith +Fenton. + +The results of matrimony upon character are for the most part slow and +hardly perceptible, yet even so not without certain well-defined stages +by which their progression forces itself into recognition; and in +fervid temperaments like that of the artist, any change is sure to be +rapid, and marked by sharp and sudden crises. + +Edith returned from Helen with her soul in a tumult. Grant Herman had +described more than her face when he applied to her the epithet +nun-like. It was a source of perpetual wonderment to many of her +friends that such a girl could be so strongly attracted by Arthur +Fenton; but those who knew his marvelous flexibility, the unconscious +hypocrisy with which he adapted himself to any nature with which he +came in contact, and on the other hand his fascinating manner, at once +brilliant and sympathetic, felt Edith's love to be the perfectly +natural consequence. She believed him to be what she wished, and he, +without conscious deceit, became for the time being what she believed +him to be. + +It was a theory of Dr. Ashton's that what Arthur Fenton became was so +purely a question of environment as to leave the artist all but +irresponsible. This fatalistic view he had laid before his wife with +some detail, at once explaining and defending his position. + +"If a chameleon is put upon a black tree," he said on one occasion when +the matter was under discussion, "you have really no right to blame him +for becoming black too; it is simply his nature. If Arthur is like that +it isn't his fault. He wasn't consulted, I fancy, about how he should +be made at all. He is self-indulgent, and if a point hurts him he +glides away from it. He cannot help it." + +"There is something in what you say," Helen had reluctantly assented, +"but I think you put it far too strongly." + +"Oh, very likely," was the careless reply. "His strongest instinct, +though, is to escape pain. We are none of us better than our +instincts." + +To such a decision as this, had she heard it, Edith, too religious to +acknowledge any thing tending towards fatalism, would not for a moment +have agreed; yet it embodied a truth destined to cause her deepest +sorrow, and which was gradually forcing itself upon her. Already, +although they had been married so few weeks, even her love-blinded eyes +could not but perceive much in her husband which shocked and pained +her. She had not considered deeply enough, never having had the +experience which would have taught her the need of considering, how +great was the gulf between her moral standpoint and that of her +betrothed. He had seemed so yielding that she had failed to perceive +that his compliances were merely outward, and left his mental attitude +unchanged. Now when it became necessary, as in every wedded life it +must sooner or later, for her to appeal to his ultimate moral belief, +she was startled to find nothing with which she was in sympathy. A +cynic--or, indeed, her husband himself--would have assured her that it +was, after all, a question of standards merely, and that difference of +judgment was natural and inevitable, and that measured by his own +convictions Arthur was quite well enough. Her answer to such a +proposition would have been that there was but one standard, and that +what differed from that were not moral principles at all, but excuses +for immoral obliquity. + +Outwardly, it is true, there was little in her husband's life of which +Edith could complain. He accompanied her to church, and if he quizzed +the preacher after returning home, she was ready to excuse this as the +natural result of a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. He allowed her +to do as she chose in the matter of charity work, and he even refrained +from going to his studio on Sunday, a sacrifice whose magnitude she had +no means of estimating, and which she therefore thought would be +continuous. It was when some ethical question arose between them that +Edith was disquieted, feeling sometimes as if she were looking into +black deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most +sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only +her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude +were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; +and Edith found argument impossible with one who denied her every +premise. + +His old acquaintances found in Arthur Fenton a change more subtle but +none the less distasteful. It was a trait of his nature to assume the +character he was half unconsciously acting, as a player may between the +scenes still feel the personality he is simulating upon the stage; and +there was about Fenton when he came in contact with the Pagans, a vague +air of remonstrance and disapproval, even when he was as bold as ever +in his own cynical utterances. + +"An expression of virtuous indignation isn't becoming in you, Fenton," +Rangely said to him one day. "Especially in a discussion which you +started yourself by the most shocking piece of wickedness I ever +heard." + +And among all the Pagans there existed a yet unspoken feeling that +Fenton was ceasing to be one of them. + +On returning from Helen's, Edith found her husband still engaged with +Dr. Ashton, but as soon as the latter had gone Arthur came to her room. + +"Well," he said, sinking leisurely into a chair. "Do you feel any +milder? Have you had your dinner?" + +"Yes," she returned, not leaving her seat on the opposite side of the +room. "I have been dining with Mrs. Ashton." + +"What!" cried Arthur, as if a bomb had exploded at his feet. Then he +sank back into his languid position. "So she has told you," he remarked +carelessly. + +"Yes, she has told me. Did you know, Arthur, when you brought us +together, that she was living under a false name, and under false +pretenses?" + +"I knew certainly," replied her husband with a coolness that marked his +inward irritation, "that her legal name was Ashton. I have still to +learn that she is living under false pretenses." + +"Is it not false," retorted Edith, with difficulty controlling her +voice, her indignation increasing with every word, "to pass as widow, +to live separated from her husband?" + +"Oh, false? Why, in your stiff, conventional definition of the word +that calls the letter every thing, the spirit nothing, I dare say it is +false; but what of that? She has a right to do as she pleases, has she +not?" + +Edith drew herself back in her chair and looked at him across the dimly +lighted chamber. It is but justice to her husband to consider that he +could not dream of the anguish she suffered. It was, as he so often +said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, +even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply +high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was +neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which +she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of +right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous +lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter +than the knowledge that the truth was not sacred to the man she loved. +Her husband's words pierced her like a dagger. It was some minutes +before she answered him. He rose moodily, lit a cigar at the gas jet +and sat down again before she broke the silence. + +"Arthur," she said in a voice which was sad and full of the solemnity +of deep feeling, "have you no regard for truth?" + +"Truth!" retorted he. "To go back to Pilate's conundrum, 'What is +truth?' If you mean a strict and fantastic adherence to facts and to +stiff conventional rules, no, I haven't the slightest regard for truth. +If you mean the eternal verities as a man's own nature and the occasion +interpret them, yes, I have the highest." + +"But that is only a confusion of words, Arthur. What do you mean by +'eternal verities' if not adherence to facts? The eternal verities +cannot be whatever it pleases any one to say. Doesn't all human +intercourse depend upon faith in one another that we will adhere to +facts? Even if you do not look at the right and the wrong, there are +surely reasons enough why the truth should be sacred." + +Her husband whiffed his cigar, idly blowing a succession of graceful +rings. + +"You are quite a metaphysician. Did you have a pleasant dinner?" + +"But, Arthur," Edith persisted, ignoring his attempt to break away, +according to his habit, from a discussion which did not please him, +"but, Arthur, do you think it right for Mrs. Greyson--Mrs. Ashton, I +mean, to live so?" + +"Right? Oh, that is the same old question in another shape. Mr. Candish +will answer all those theological riddles; it is his business to. They +don't interest me." + +He threw away his half smoked cigar, dusted his coat sleeve of a stray +fleck of ash, settled his cravat before the glass, and humming a tune +walked towards his wife, his hands clasped behind him. + +"We do not agree, Edith," he said with cold deliberation, "and unless +you broaden your views, I am afraid we never shall. You are a dozen +decades behind the day, and are foolish enough to take all your church +teaches you in earnest. Religion should no more be taken without salt +than radishes. The church inculcates it to excuse its own existence, +but you certainly are reasonable enough to outgrow this old-fashioned +Puritanism." + +"Arthur," was her answer, "we do not agree, and if you wait for me to +come to your standards, I am afraid you are right in saying that we +never shall; and, indeed, I hope you are right. It makes me more +unhappy than you can think," she continued, her eyes swimming with +bitter tears, "that we are so far apart on what I must believe to be +vital points; on truths which I believe, Arthur, with my whole soul--as +you would, too, had you not carefully educated yourself into a doubt +which cannot make you better or happier." + +She had risen as she spoke, and stood facing him, her pure, pale face +confronting his with a look of pathos which touched him despite +himself. She came a step nearer, and put her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, Arthur!" she pleaded, "I love you, and how can I help mourning +that you wrong your better nature; that you resist the impulses of your +own best self?" + +He yielded to her caresses in silence. He remembered that Helen had +used this same phrase. + +"Women always appeal to one's best self," he commented inly, with a +mental shrug, "which means a man's inclination to do whatever a woman +asks of him." + +But he kissed his wife's lips, and said, tolerantly: + +"We will talk it over some other time, my dear. We are both tired +to-night. But you are right, I suppose, as you always are." + +And she loosened her arms from his neck, recognizing that he had put +her appeal aside and waived the whole matter. + + + + +XXIX. + +A NECESSARY EVIL. + Julius Caesar; ii.--2. + + +At the St. Filipe Club, somewhere in the small hours of that same +night, half-a-dozen members were lingering. One was at the piano, +recalling snatches from various composers, the air being clouded alike +with music and smoke wreaths. + +"I think you fellows are hard on Fenton," the musician protested, in +response to some remark of Ainsworth's. "I don't see what he's done to +make you all so down on him." + +"It isn't any thing that he has done," Tom Bently replied, "it is what +he has become. He has developed an entirely new side of his nature, and +a deucedly unpleasant one, too." + +"I always had a mental reservation on Fenton," remarked another. "He +was always insisting that his soul was his own, don't you know; and +when a man keeps that up I always conclude that he has his private +doubts on the subject; or if he hasn't, I have." + +"That's about the case with all the musical rowing we've been having +for the last year or two; every musician has been in a fever lest he +should be thought to be truckling to somebody." + +"What rubbish all this concert business is," remarked Tom. "In Boston a +concert interests a little _clique_ of people, and another bigger +_clique_ pretend to be interested. The nonsense that is talked +about music here is nauseating. The public doesn't really care any +thing about it. In Boston a concert is given in Music Hall; but in +Paris it is given in the whole city. It is an event there, not a +trifling incident." + +"What do you know about music?" retorted the player, clashing a furious +discord with his elbow as he turned towards the speaker. "I'll attend +to you presently. Now I want to know about Fenton. What has he done +that you are all blackguarding him?" + +"I think he's got a creed," said Ainsworth, scowling and smiling +together, according to his wont. "I hate to charge a man with any thing +so black, but I think Fenton's wife has made him take a creed, and a +pretty damned narrow one at that." + +"By Jove!" the musician observed, solemnly. "It's too bad. Fenton is a +mighty bright fellow, and no end obliging." + +"If it's only a creed," swore Bently, "what's all this fuss about? +Every body has a creed, hasn't he? A man's temperament is his creed." + +"It isn't his having a creed that I object to," remarked Grant Herman; +"it is the question of his sincerity that troubles me. If he has taken +up some collection of dogmas merely to please his wife--who seems a +very sweet, quiet body--that is of course against him; but if he +believes it, I don't see why we should object." + +"Believes it!" sniffed Ainsworth, in great contempt. "That is worse +than any thing I've said. I don't think Fenton is quite such an idiot +as that comes to. The idea of his believing in Puritanism! Oh, good +Lord!" + +"Puritanism," Bently threw in irrelevantly, and because he liked the +sound of it, "Puritanism is the preliminary rottenness of New England. +If he is struck with that by all means let him go; the further the +better." + +"Isn't it his night for the Pagans this month?" somebody inquired. + +"Yes," returned Bently, "but I took the liberty of going to him and +asking if he would let me take it this turn. I hope you fellows don't +mind." The talk thus flowed on in a desultory fashion amid ever +thickening clouds of tobacco smoke, and Grant Herman, sitting for the +most part quiet, had a whimsical idea in looking at his +half-extinguished cigar. Certain excellent cigars, his thoughts ran, +have a way of burning sluggishly about the middle, and without actually +going out, yet need to be relighted; and in the same way a man's life +goes on better for the kindling flame of a fresh attachment in middle +life. He fell into reverie, thinking of Helen and of Ninitta. He had +not seen the Italian since her flight, but from Mrs. Greyson he had +learned the story of the finding and recovery of the fugitive; and his +heart kindled with gratitude toward the woman who had prevented +consequences which he should have fruitlessly regretted. He became so +absorbed in his thoughts that only the entrance of Fred Rangely aroused +him. + +"Hallo, Rangely," the new comer was greeted, "where do you come from at +this time of night?" + +"Oh, from the office of the Daily Day-before-yesterday. I had an +article in, and I wanted to read the proof. I can stand any thing in +the world better than I can endure a compositor's blunders. Do any of +you know Dr. Ashton?" + +"I do," somebody answered. "What of him?" + +"Rather clever fellow, wasn't he?" + +"Why, yes; I think he is. He's rather odd sometimes. What about him?" + +"Dead." + +"Nonsense! I saw him myself not three hours ago, posting a letter in +the box opposite his office." + +"He is dead, though. Heart disease. They just got the news at the +_Advertiser_ office." + +"Where was he?" + +"In his office. The night porter of the building heard him fall against +the door. They say he must have died without a struggle." + + + + +XXX. + +HOW CHANCES MOCK. + II Henry IV.; in.--I. + + +Early on the following forenoon Helen took her way to the studio. She +was in unusually good spirits that day, for no especial reason that she +could have told, although indeed it is possible that the prospect of +meeting Grant Herman may have subtly contributed to the buoyancy of her +mood. + +She walked briskly through the bracing morning across the Common, her +mind full of bright fancies. A thin column of smoke arose from the +chimney of the lodge in the deer-park, rising straight in the clear +air, and cheerfully suggestive that some tiny family, not too large for +the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer +themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a +picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck +sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and +now and then glancing at his wife over his spectacles. + +In this joyous mood she came to the studio. A sudden thought darted +through her mind, with no apparent connection, of the talk of the night +previous, and for an instant her face clouded; but the exhilaration of +the morning and the reaction from the sad, overstrained state in which +her husband had left her, both helped her to throw off all mournful +thoughts. Ninitta had not arrived, and Mrs. Greyson busied herself +about the bas-relief, preparing for work. Suddenly the tap of Grant +Herman sounded upon her door. + +"Good morning," he said, entering in response to her invitation. "I +knew by your step that you were in good spirits, and it gave me so much +pleasure to think you were glad to be back, that I had to come up." + +"I am in good spirits," she returned. "It is such a glorious morning, +and Ninitta has kept me away from my work long enough for me to be very +glad to return to it." + +"What of Ninitta?" he asked, a shadow coming over his fine face. "She +is not still with you?" + +"No, but she is coming to pose this morning, though I hardly think she +is strong enough." + +The sculptor took in his hands a bit of clay and began nervously to +model it into various shapes. + +"Why did you take her home, Mrs. Greyson?" he asked after a moment's +silence. + +"Because she needed me," Helen answered. "And besides," she added +hesitatingly, "I thought you would like her to be under my care." + +"Did you?" he returned eagerly. "I was more grateful to you than you +would let me tell you! I--" + +He broke off abruptly as if determined to keep himself from any +dangerous demonstrativeness. + +"Come into my studio a moment," said he, throwing down the clay he +held. "I have something to show you." + +Helen followed willingly, glad to avoid the chance of their being +interrupted by the arrival of Ninitta, whose jealousy might easily be +aroused again. The sculptor led the way through a couple of chambers, +bringing her out at the top of the stairs leading down in the corner of +his studio. The morning sun shone in through the window far up in the +side wall, tinged to rich colors by the stained glass which Herman had +set there. The statues and casts looked in the light coming from above +them, as if they had just emerged from garments of shadows which yet +lay fallen about their feet. Helen uttered an exclamation of +admiration. + +"How charming the studio is in this light," she said. "It is like +looking down into a ghost world." + +"It is a ghost world," was the response. "It has long been haunted, but +I had not supposed that any eyes but my own saw the wraiths which dwell +here." + +The vibratory quality in his voice warned her not to answer. She felt +that she stood upon the brink of a significant interview, yet she +lacked the resolution to turn back. + +She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor +following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she +wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from +Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not +pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent passion, and, +indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if +unmixed with some desire to escape from him. + +All sorts of artistic rubbish had accumulated in the little gallery; +broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored +marble, and the thousand objects which make up the _débris_ of a +sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung +dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the +white-plaster goddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small +antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids +danced in immortal glee. + +"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar +before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?" + +"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle +shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?" + +"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated. + +"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar--it +is a Hymeneal altar, they say--and said I would pour a libation upon +it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough." + +He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more +definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away +into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast +down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored +marble, resting upon the altar. + +"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to +leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed +up ever since until--until recently." + +However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was +yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the +sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to +what the question might lead, she asked: + +"And recently?" + +"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and +meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me." + +He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since +the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion +in an abstracted, impersonal way. + +"To remind you?" she in turn echoed. + +"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, +and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair." + +She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch +her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund +Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face. + +"But you removed it here." + +"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this +world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves--the +amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was +too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of +sight." + +She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned +and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing +eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again +and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to +speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words: + +"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see +mirrored in it." + +"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly. + +"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is +worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible." + +"But facts are such achromatic glasses." + +To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling +stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the +sculptor carefully removed. + +A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and +of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of +broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head +and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling +with the limpness of death. About the noble, lifeless head were bent +and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly +destroyed. + +Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the +pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her +eyes. + +"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure. + +Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the +pedestal, and she saw the words: + + "I strew these opiate flowers + Round thy restless pillow." + +Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a +delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the +face of the tall form beside her. + +"But he is dead," she murmured at length. + +"It seems so," he assented. + +She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white. + +"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice +thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love +him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton--Dr. +Ashton." + +"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton, +Teuton's friend?" + +"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to +heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have +told you, but I could not bear--Oh," she cried, breaking off her +sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!" + +"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you +been told?" + +"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?" + +"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?" + +"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?" + +"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was +possible to soften the blow. "He is dead." + +"Dead!" + +Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a +lifeless warrior. + +A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing +of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more +that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when +confronted by the irremediable--as if some blame must be taken for the +acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the +responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to +question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. +Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late +aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of +his suffering she might more strongly--A sudden thought pierced her +like a knife. + +"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly. + +"Of heart disease." + +So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were +truth. + +"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta." + +When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. +Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone +out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which +resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing +of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it +before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, +like the life of him whose last act had been their forming: + + "DEATH FOILS THE GODS." + + + + +XXXI. + +HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast +that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead." + +"Dead!" she exclaimed. + +Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an +unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a +subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it +made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost +immoral. + +"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph +containing the announcement of Dr. Ashton's sudden death from heart +disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow +and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now." + +"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?" + +"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably +make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon." + +"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her +eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so--so--flippantly." + +"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you +should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of +it,--to you, that is; of course I should not in public." + +"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean--" + +"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as +ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will +took poison, poor old fellow." + +She sank back in her chair, white and trembling. + +"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if +Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier." + +"Providence is noted for close observance of the _lex talionis_" +sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that +functionary, so it really ought to have passed him by. It would +certainly have been more dignified." + +"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his +last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are +all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own +lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all +a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr. +Ashton--Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I +cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!" + +She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, +and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with +intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her. +He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues +of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table. + +"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the +sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough +of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things +to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will +use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking +people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all +a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of +view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant +Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to +obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superstitions. +There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston--and +for aught I know a hundred thousand--who believe, or, if you like, +disbelieve, as I do." + +"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad +to think of." + +"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me +as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them." + +She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The +sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, +and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned +her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her +husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her +power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote +herself wholly to duty. + +The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further +conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton +had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received +later in the day. + +"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in +confidence." + +The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be +outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note: + + +DEAR ARTHUR:-- + +I've a strong presentiment--and although I disbelieve in presentiments, +mine generally come true--that in about half an hour my obituary will +be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me +to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit +dramatically, and you've often assured me that that is the chief thing +to consider in this connection. I've contemplated such a possibility +long enough to have my affairs in order, and doubtless your wife will +have a mass or two said for the repose of my soul. If you ever have a +chance to do Helen a good turn, you may regard it as a personal favor +to my ghost to do it. I've left you my Diaz as a sort of propitiatory +sop. + +Yours, of course, as ever, W. A. + + +"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" Edith sobbed, breaking down again. "It is awful! +It is just as he always talked. It is as light as if he were going out +to drive." + +"Naturally," was the response. "If you fancy Will would cry baby at +death, you knew him far from as well as I did. How strange it is to +think of his being in the past tense, poor fellow. It was clever of him +to leave me his Diaz; I always coveted it." + +In the face of this, what was there for Edith to say. She was simply +numbed to silence, and horror at her husband for the time deadened all +sense of the shock of Dr. Ashton's death. It was not until later in the +day that she was able to think of Helen. + +"But, Arthur," she said then, "Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Well; what of Mrs. Greyson?" + +"I am going to see her." + +"After your last night's indignation?" + +"I may have been wrong," Mrs. Fenton said bravely, "I may have been +hard. I realize every day how little I am able to judge for other +people. Perhaps I am narrow, as you say. At least now her husband is +dead I can show her my sympathy; and since I know more of him, it does +not seem so strange that she left him." + +"They left each other," he responded to these contradictory words. "But +what can you say? The consolations of religion will hardly be +available, and Helen never pretended to love Ashton?" + +His tone wounded her, but she answered without a change of countenance: + +"The death of the man who has been her husband can never be indifferent +to any true woman. I shall not force her to listen to any religion she +does not wish to hear." + + + + +XXXII. + +A SYMPATHY OF WOE. + Titus Andronicus; iii.--I. + + +"I am afraid you will think me intrusive," was Edith's hesitating +greeting to Helen, "but I could not help coming. I thought you might +feel lonely." + +Helen looked at her for a moment with wistful eyes and trembling lips: +then she crossed swiftly to where her friend stood and kissed her. And +never could these two be so wholly separated or estranged again as to +efface the memory of all the meaning that this caress conveyed. The +word which Edith had used had been most happily chosen. Her woman's +instinct divined the loneliness which overwhelmed the widow, and this +proof of her sympathy was the passport to Mrs. Greyson's heart. +Loneliness was the feeling of which Helen was most of all conscious. +The death of even an indifferent acquaintance often may seem to +desolate the earth from its simple irremediableness, and much more does +the removal of one near to us make the world appear half a void. + +Helen had been sitting alone before Edith came, reviewing her past and +drearily speculating of her future. She went over the days of her +wedded life; her innocent, introspective childhood, in which she had +dreamed and read, dwelling in a world apart; alone but for the ideal +creations of her books or her own quick fancy. She had married knowing +as little of life or of love, as when, a lonely child, she had spelled +out the tale of Prince Camaralzaman, and wondered what the divine +passion really was, or if indeed it had existence, outside of fairy +lore. + +The torch of death throws its glare backward, and its funeral light +showed many a past long since forgotten, but now revealed with new and +distorting vividness. Helen remembered the baby which had lived but +long enough to open its eyes with a smile that seemed of recognition, +and then faded back into the unknown whence it had come. A throb of +tenderness for the dead father moved the mother's heart as she thought +of her baby, so little time hers, and so long asleep under the +marguerites of a grave over the sea. She had suffered much from the +selfishness, the dominant self-will, the distorted views of life of Dr. +Ashton; and these things she even now could not forget; but, too, she +thought of him as the father of her child, her baby ever dear and +living in memory. + +She reflected, too, of the men she had known, and especially of Arthur +Fenton. Her nature had need of some one upon whom to expend its +treasures, and she realized that had she not felt in the artist a +certain insincerity, he might have awakened her love. He had been +appreciative, sympathetic, brilliant; and, too, he had called largely +upon her patience and forbearance, than which there is no surer way to +win a generous woman's affection. Yet always some note rang false to +her fine ear, and to the weakness of his nature she had never been +wholly blind, although not until his marriage had given him a certain +distance had she realized how deep and unsparing her knowledge of him +really was. + +Of Grant Herman she would not think. Thoughts of him arose again and +again in her mind, but she resolutely put them down. Some secret stir +of mingled pain and joy told her too well that the sculptor had +awakened the first love of her life. But at least with her husband, +however unloved, lying yet unburied, she would not dwell upon the +passion of another. + +She took Edith's hand, and the two women sat down side by side, +shedding tears together, rather from a sense of the general woe and +bitterness of life than for poignant grief for the present calamity. It +was not much they said at first. Neither was of the talkative order of +women, finding comfort in the mere utterance of words. They grew +together, sustained by giving and receiving tenderness, and each +tacitly asking and according forgiveness for unfriendly feelings in the +past. It is probable, too, that Edith, heavy with the disappointments +of her married life, found relief in being able to weep unrestrainedly, +even though the true source of her tears was not the obvious one. + +"I never loved him," Helen said of her husband. "After we separated we +became friends, rather because of a common past when we were both +strangers here, than from any fitness for each other. But he was once +my husband." + +Her friend pressed her hand in silence. + +"We had a child," Helen spoke again; "a little daughter. She only lived +one day. If she had not gone it might have been different. At least we +should have kept on together. My poor little baby!" + +Edith's eyes were full of tears, as she answered softly: + +"I hope you will let me say that I believe she is waiting for you some +where." + +"She must be," the mother responded quickly. "Whatever one doubts, one +must surely believe that. I could not lose her! She is mine, wherever +in the universe she may be." + +"Yes," was all Edith ventured in reply. "I am sure of it." + +They gave no heed to the fading day, but sat with clasped hands until +twilight had gathered, and it occurred at last to Mrs. Fenton that her +husband and dinner must be awaiting her. Helen had been telling of her +plans. + +"I shall go abroad," she said, "I want to study in Rome; I want to meet +great men; to be influenced by great works. I have been thinking of it +for a long time, and now it seems as if some ties that held me here are +broken, for we often obey claims which we yet deny. And besides," she +added, in a lower tone, "it is a flight from temptation. I am in danger +here." + +"In danger?" Edith asked wonderingly. + +"Only from myself," was the reply, "but that peril is sufficiently +imminent to make me afraid." + +Edith questioned no further, and to the true import of these words she +had no clue. She looked at her friend a moment inquiringly and +musingly, but as Helen did not continue, she rose to go. + +"I must get home now," she said, in a tone so tender that it seemed to +beg pardon for this abandonment. "Arthur is waiting for me and his +dinner; and if he doesn't get the latter at least, I won't answer for +the consequences. Mr. Calvin was with him when I came away." + +"Mr. Peter Calvin!" exclaimed the other, in some surprise. + +"Yes; he has bought one of Arthur's pictures, and he wants Arthur to +propose him at the St. Filipe Club, I believe." + +She spoke in perfect ignorance of the tumult her words excited in her +hearer's mind. Long after Edith was gone Helen sat looking out into the +darkening sky and thinking of Arthur Fenton. She had heard him talk too +often about Mr. Peter Calvin not to know what was implied by this new +friendship. Mr. Peter Calvin had been for years the head and front of +Boston Philistinism in art. He had been the patron of subservient +artists; the chairman of committees for the purchase of public statues; +an elegant writer upon such live and timely topics as _Plaster +Casting among the Egyptians, Notes upon Abyssinian Statues_, while +his monograph upon the question, _What Was the Original Cost of the +Venus de Milo?_ had by his flatterers been pronounced the +masterpiece of all known art essays for power and critical research. +His was a prominent name upon the covers of dilettante art journals; it +was he who effectually crushed young and too daringly independent +artists; who repressed impertinent originality; who headed the hosts of +conventionality against individuality or genius which held itself above +the established canons of antiquated tradition. He was the High Priest +of Boston conservatism; the presiding genius of Philistia; and until +the St. Filipe Club entered a protest against him by refusing to admit +him to membership, his power had scarcely received a blow. + +Tom Bently always insisted, with much profanity, that Mr. Peter Calvin +was a joke. + +"He writes with tremendous pomposity," Tom would say, "and he is in no +end of societies for molly-coddling art. He goes on, too, about the +plaster casts at that hospital for decrepit gods, the Art Museum, as if +his whole soul was in the plaster barrels of the Greeks. But bless your +soul! It's only his little joke. He doesn't really mean any thing by +it. He's only a stupendous joke himself." + +The Pagans, so far as they were to be regarded as an entity, +represented the protest of the artistic soul against shams. They stood +for sincerity above everything; for utter honesty in art, in life, in +manners and morals alike. To them Philistinism was the substitution of +convention for conviction. For the spirit of imitation, of blind +subservience to authority, the Pagans had no tolerance. While they held +themselves always open to conviction, they refused assent to any thing +which was offered them _ex cathedra_; they devoted themselves to +art with a passion of enthusiasm which was in itself the highest +expression of their principles. That they seemed often iconoclastic was +in reality less the result of their hatred of authority than the +prevalence of unreasoning, and therefore by their standards necessarily +insincere, adherence to established formulae. Dogmas they hated, not +because they were popularly received, but because although they had +been vital realities to their originators, they had become in time mere +lifeless forms, held in reverence by blind devotees long after the soul +had gone out of them. + +In art especially the Pagans demanded the most absolute surrender of +self to truth; and it should be added that they defined truth exactly +as Helen did, "that which one sincerely believes." They had no +condemnation too severe or sweeping for the artist who worshipped the +golden gods of Philistia by following popular conventions at the +expense of his honest art ideals. It is not impossible that they +carried this feeling to extremes sometimes, suspecting every thing +which was stamped with popular approval, but in the main at least their +standard was of the highest and their lives conformed well to it. +Measured by the creeds they rejected, they might often enough be found +wanting; tried by their own, there had never been an apostate among +them until the defection of Fenton. + +No one had been more bitter and outspoken in his condemnation of Mr. +Calvin and of what he represented than Arthur Fenton. Many a time he +had entertained Helen with stories of the presumption and the ignorance +of this man whom now he was receiving into his friendship, or, more +properly, in whose train of sycophants he had taken his place. + +Helen could not forgive him. Leaving dinner untasted, she sat with +burning cheeks in the darkness, mourning over the apostacy of the man +who had been her warmest friend. + + + + +XXXIII. + +A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +Dr. Ashton had been in his grave several weeks. Life had gone on much +as usual in Boston, with the bickerings of small souls the gaping +imitations of the mob, the carping of the self-appointed critics, and +the earnest endeavor of the honest and inspired workers, who leaven the +lump of modern civilization. + +Among the Pagans the nomination of Mr. Calvin to the St. Filipe Club by +Arthur Fenton had been received with a bitterness born of a feeling of +outraged confidence. They were to-night to meet in Tom Bently's studio, +and Fenton, who had no intention of being present, was yet keenly +conscious of what the talk there concerning him would be. He was glum +and moody at dinner, and Edith, who knew that this was Pagan night, +watched him wistfully. She hoped to win him away from friends and +acquaintances who seemed to her dangerous. Perfectly honest and ready +to lay down her life for her husband, she was yet urging him into paths +which he felt it to be degradation to walk, since they led him away +from sincerity. She had no means of knowing how his sudden championship +of Mr. Calvin was regarded. Her own relations to art had been those of +pretty amateurishness. She had been bred to believe in conventionality, +and the flavor of Bohemianism alarmed and repelled her. + +To-night she had put on her most becoming dress, she had ordered the +dinner with especial reference to her husband's tastes, and she exerted +herself to be as entertaining and attractive as lay in her power. She +even allowed herself the innocent ruse of delaying dinner a little, +that it might be later before Arthur could be ready to go out; and when +the answer to her timid hope that he was to be at home that evening, +was in the affirmative, her foolish, tender heart fluttered with +delighted hope that she was influencing him to shake off his irregular +associations. + +He was rather gloomy and silent all the evening, brooding of the +Pagans, from whose meetings he had never before been absent, and of +Helen, and what she would think. Edith tried all her arts and wiles to +make him forget the pleasure he was losing, and she partly succeeded, +since her attentions and endearments chimed in with the train of +thought by which he was endeavoring to prove to his own satisfaction +that he was the most virtuous of men, and that his swearing allegiance +to Philistinism, was a noble example of a transgressor willing to +confess and abjure his faults. He accepted his wife's attentions as +eminently fitting under the circumstances, and could he have forgotten +the Pagans and Helen, he might almost have been comfortable. More than +once in the old days he had found it hard to face Mrs. Greyson's clear +eyes, which saw so readily through shams, and now while he was able to +work himself into a defensive attitude towards all others of his old +friends, he felt a horrible humiliation in the consciousness that Helen +was sure to know of his course and to understand all its weakness. + +It occurred to him, too, that Helen had avoided him of late. Since the +death of Dr. Ashton, he had scarcely seen her, although she was often +with his wife. He knew from Edith that she was soon to go abroad, and +he wondered if the wish to escape him had any share in bringing her to +this decision. + +He tormented himself with speculations and memories until he could +endure it no longer. He must have comfort; his wounded self-sufficiency +craved the balm of approval, and although he was contemptuously +conscious of his own weakness, he turned to Edith to seek admiration +and praise. + +"So you are glad that I am not going to the Pagans to-night," he said +to her, as they sat before the fire, for the evening was damp and +chilly. + +"Very glad," she answered, leaving her chair to come and sit upon a low +hassock by his knee. "It was so good of you." + +She made a beautiful picture as she sat there, her long dress of +cardinal and stone gray silk gathered in waves about her, the +Elizabethan ruffle setting off her shapely head and slender neck, while +the soft, yellow old lace showed how clear was the tone of her skin. +Her pure, sweet face, with its appealing dark eyes, was turned upward +to her husband's, in an expression at once wistful and full of love. +Edith had always a highbred air, and to-night her attitude and +expression added the one charm of warmth and softness needed to make +her most lovely and moving. + +"You doubtless have some excellent reason," remarked Arthur smiling +down on her. + +"I am afraid of them; they are in arms against every thing that is +acknowledged to be good." + +"And yet they are the most honest men I ever knew," he returned, half +musing, and with a little pleased sense of his magnanimity in saying +this at a moment when they were probably abusing him. + +"I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps they may be honest, but I am sure it is +not good for you to be with them. They are so sure that their false +views of life are true." + +The little sting in the implication that he was not able to resist the +influence which had surrounded him was forgotten in the satisfactory +view which his wife took of the real value of the judgments of the +Pagans. He knew how little she understood them. With every premise upon +which her conclusions were founded he disagreed, yet he said to himself +that Edith was right; that the Pagans were quite too infallible about +every thing. They would have him grope along poor and unknown, he +argued with himself, simply for the sake of standing in the position of +chronic rebuke to established authorities; with only now and then a +chance to get a hearing upon what they assumed to be the true theory of +art. What they believed--ah! there after all was the weakness of the +whole. What ground had they for their belief? Did he himself really +believe any thing, or had he a right to assert in any matter a positive +conviction? And even if they or he asserted never so strongly, what +sort of a test of truth was that? After all the Philistines, the +Calvins, were as likely to be right as were a set of discontented if +not disappointed artists; men whose natures would never allow them to +be satisfied with any existing state of things, since it would +inevitably differ from their dreamy ideals. And it was certainly true +that the weight of authority and of numbers was with the Philistines. + +"Perhaps you are right, Edith," he said aloud. "I hope so at least, for +they are probably indignant enough with me." + +"With you? Why?" + +"Oh, they choose to think I went over to Philistia when I proposed Mr. +Calvin for the St. Filipe. I'm sure I don't see why I haven't a right +to propose whom I please." + +"But Mr. Calvin, Arthur," responded Edith, who regarded that gentleman +as one of the art gods of Boston. "I should think any body would be +proud to propose him. Why, he is one of the most distinguished men in +the city." + +Her husband did not answer for a moment. He looked into the fire and +watched his inner consciousness adapt itself to this view of the case, +which than himself no one had condemned more bitterly. Yet it was the +theory upon which it was necessary to rest did he expect to arrive at +any comfort in the course of supporting Mr. Calvin, which he had +already pursued so far that retreat was impossible. Yes, he assured +himself, he could even accept this. And why not? Did not common opinion +confirm it; and however much common opinion might be sneered at, it was +surely the voice of the common sense of the world. + +He looked down at his wife, who looked back smiling proudly. He +realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she +was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to +beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; +and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his +rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He +realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his +convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin and his +following. He recalled Helen's remark that what is called being honest +with one's self is often the subtlest form of hypocrisy, and he did not +spare himself a single pang of self-humiliation and contempt; and then, +when he was full to the throat with self-loathing, he let his sensuous, +self-loving nature devise excuse and soothe his wounded vanity. + +He looked into the fire with a smile of mingled bitterness and +complacency, half ashamed, half amused at the view which introspection +gave him. + +But whenever into his musings came the thought of Helen it rankled like +a poisoned barb. For he secretly believed that Helen loved him, and +although if a man humiliates himself in the eyes of the woman he loves +it is as bitter as death; yet to prove unworthy in the sight of her who +hopelessly loves him, contains a more subtly envenomed shaft, which +wounds that most sensitive spot in a sensuous man's nature--his vanity. + + + + +XXXIV. + +HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--I. + + +That evening Helen too sat at home, alone and full of resistless +thoughts. + +She had put the finishing touches to the _Flight of the Months_, +completing the work with scarcely less success than at first, and in +three days she was to sail for Europe. She had not allowed Dr. Ashton's +death to interrupt her work, the necessity of avoiding unpleasant +gossip which would be provoked by the disclosure of her relations with +the dead man, being sufficient reason why she should not change her +outward life. She quietly and rapidly completed the preparations for +departure, and already the feeling of severance from familiar scenes +cast its sadness over her. + +Leaving the studio to-day, she had gone down to speak with Herman, whom +she wished to take the responsibility of the firing of the bas-relief. +When she had finished this errand she turned to a figure in terra-cotta +whose freshness showed that it had but recently come from the kiln. + +"What is this?" she asked. "I have never seen it." + +"It is a Pasht," the sculptor returned. "I modeled it as a wedding +present for Arthur Fenton, but luckily I did not get it done in time." + +"Why 'luckily?'" + +"Because I should be sorry to have given him any thing so closely +connected with the Pagans, as things have turned out." + +Helen did not need to ask explanations of these words, although she did +not know how complete the breach between Fenton and his former friends +had become. + +"I am glad I am going away," she exclaimed with a sigh. + +"Going away?" he echoed, dropping his modeling tools. + +"Yes, I sail Saturday." + +She spoke with perfect composure, yet her glance was averted. She was +painfully conscious of having concealed the fact from him until this +moment. + +He came towards her, his eyes fixed upon her face. + +"What does this mean?" he demanded, almost fiercely. "Why do you go?" + +"I mean to study in Rome," she replied faintly. "I always told you that +I hoped to go some day." + +"But why do you go now? Why have you concealed it from me? Are you +afraid of my--of my love? If any one must go it should be I; I have no +right to drive you away." + +"You are not driving me away; I--it is better that I should go." + +"But why go now? Now you are free, and I have a right to claim you." + +"No," Helen said in a voice suddenly firm, but which yet showed her +inward agitation, "no; there is Ninitta. I have suffered too much +myself to be willing to try to come to happiness over any woman's +heart. It is better that I should go." + +"Ninitta!" Herman burst out. "She has no claim; she will not even care; +she--" + +"No," interrupted Helen, laying her hand upon his arm. "You cannot say +that; you know it is not true. You can see as well as I that Ninitta is +pining her life out over your neglect. We are not free to break her +heart when you yourself taught her to love." + +"I have never been unkind to her," he said, a little defiantly; "except +perhaps when she acted like a mad woman and broke your figures." + +"In love," returned Helen, smiling faintly, and glad to take refuge in +generalities, "sins of commission, as compared with the deadly sin of +omission, are mere venial offenses. It is not what you have done, but +what you have left undone." + +"But what can I do? I cannot force myself to love her?" + +"You have made her love you." + +"But I outgrew her centuries ago." + +"The price of growth is always to outgrow," replied Helen. + +She was struggling hard to keep the conversation away from dangerous +levels. She felt that she must seem heartless, but none the less she +went on bravely. + +"And after all what is outgrowing? It is a question of moods, of--" + +But her courage failed her. Her voice trembled, she turned away from +him and walked down the studio, stopping here and there as if to +examine a cast or a figure, invisible through the tears which welled up +in her eyes. The sculptor followed close behind her, until she put her +hand upon the great Oran rug which hung before the door. + +"Then you leave me," he broke out bitterly. "You make Ninitta a pretext +for escaping me. You might have told me that you did not care for me. I +would not have molested you." + +She turned to him suddenly, and he was startled by the whiteness of her +face, for she was pale to the very lips. + +"Do you think it is easy for me to go," she cried passionately, "to +give you up when I love you! You should help me, not make it harder. +Isn't it better to part now while we have nothing to regret than to +live with a wrong between us?" + +"But what wrong will be between us? Surely that boyish mistake need not +blight both our lives." + +"Can we help it?" she asked sadly. + +"We will help it! Are we merely puppets then, to be bandied about +helplessly? I told her I loved her; it is no longer true, and why is +the pledge that followed binding?" + +"It is not simply that you gave her your word," Helen returned, +struggling bravely with herself; "it is that you made her love you, and +that obligation you can never shake off. Oh, it is because you are too +noble to take a woman's love and then trample upon it, that I love +you--that you fill my heart." + +She poured out the words, her eyes blazing, her splendid form dilated, +her arms involuntarily extended towards him. He took her into his +embrace; not hastily, not wildly; but with a slow, irresistible movement +that had in it something of solemnity. He showered kisses upon her +hair, her forehead, her lips; he pressed her to his bosom as if he +would absorb her into himself. + +"My darling, my darling," he said, in a hoarse, fiery whisper, "I +cannot give you up! Think how lonely I am; how I love you!" + +She put up her face and kissed him with a long, clinging kiss; then she +freed herself from his arms. They stood face to face, her eyes +appealing, until his glance fell before hers. + +"Yes," he said in a voice so low that she bent forward to listen, "yes; +you must be right." + +"I am right," she responded sadly, "I have fought against it too much +not to be sure of that." + +"It is an odd way of proving my love for you to give you up," continued +Herman, with a new accent of bitterness in his voice. "Oh, the folly of +that boyish passion!" + +He strode away from her, as she leaned panting against a modeling +stand. The darkness was gathering so rapidly that when he turned back +his face came out of the gloom like a surprise. + +"My reward," he said, "must be that you love me; but that very reward +makes it harder to deserve it. I am sure that we would be wiser and +happier if we had no scruples to hamper us." + +"But we have," was her response; "to take your own words, we are not +mere puppets." + +Again he walked away from her, and for a few moments there was no sound +but that of his heavy footsteps, which seemed to make the silence more +solemn and penetrating. + +"I will do whatever you ask," he burst out suddenly. "I will even marry +her if you wish." + +"I ask nothing. It is not I but your convictions you should follow. I +am not even able to advise. Your own instincts are better and nobler +than any thing I can say to you." She stopped and choked back a sob. +"Oh, Grant, it is so hard!" she cried. + +She had never used that name before, and it so thrilled him with joy +and pain that he made an impulsive movement as if once more to take her +in his arms; but she lifted her hand with a gesture of negation. + +"I have been tempted as well as you," she continued, "I have said to +myself a thousand times that love justified all, and that these +theories were too fine spun. I could not keep the thought of you down +even when I first knew I was a widow, and I said over and over to +myself that now no one stood between us. I knew it was no use, but I +lay awake in the night and tried to prove to myself that Ninitta had no +claim,--but, oh! you are too much to me for me to be willing that you +should do what we both know is wrong and cruel. I can endure anything +better than that you should not always be my ideal; and I should hate +myself if I tempted you to wrong." + +"What I am," he said brokenly, moved most of all by the tears upon her +cheeks, "is nothing. You have beaten this temptation, not I; I would +have done any thing if you had encouraged me. I am a very ordinary +mortal, Helen, when one really knows my littleness." + +She smiled through her tears at him. + +"You shall not abuse yourself;" she replied. "I will not have it." + +There was not much further said between them. They remained together +until the dusk filled the studio, and it looked again like a +ghost-world as on the morning they two had come into it to see the dead +form modeled in red clay. Perhaps it was upon this remembrance that at +length Mrs. Greyson said: + +"Will you give me, before I go to Europe, that figure you showed me?" + +"I will give you any thing you ask," he answered; "I wish I might add +myself. Is it right," he added, with sudden fire, "for me to tie myself +to that model girl? Am I worth nothing better than that?" + +"You are worth the best woman on earth; but--oh I cannot argue it, but +I feel it; I am sure that it cannot be right to deny the claim which +you yourself gave her, Grant. I know by myself what it would be to lose +you." + +"But she is not the woman you are. Her feelings are those of an +ignorant peasant; she--" + +Helen laid her fingers lightly upon his lips. + +"No," she said, "don't go on. We have said it all once. You are trying +to out-argue your own convictions. I must go now. It is almost dark +already." + +She took a step or two towards the door and again laid her hand upon +the rug _portiêre_. Then as by a common impulse they turned +towards each other, and once more she was locked in his embrace. + +And to-night, sitting alone in the dark, with dilated eyes, Helen felt +still the ecstasy of that moment, but murmured to herself: + +"It must not be again; I will not see him alone." + + + + +XXXV. + +PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP. + Othello; ii.--I. + + +Tom Bently's studio that night was a sight well worth seeing. + +Tom had two rooms in Studio Building, opening into each other by +folding doors, which were never known to be shut. The walls were hung +with old French tapestry, its rich, soft colors harmonizing exquisitely +with some dull-red velvet draperies from Venice. Bits of armor, some of +them very splendid, were disposed here and there, while a wealth of +_bric-à-brac_ enriched every nook and corner. In the doorway hung +an old altar-lamp of silver, with a cup of ruby glass, and from various +points depended other lamps of Moresque and antique shapes. A pair of +tall brass flambeau-stands, spoil of a Belgian cathedral sacked a +couple of centuries ago, upheld the heaviest candles Tom had been able +to find, which smoked and flared most picturesquely. + +Bently had traveled widely, every where picking up graceful and +artistic trifles--stuffs from Algiers; rugs from Persia and Turkey; +weapons from Tripoli and India and Tunis; musical instruments from +Egypt and Spain; antiques from Greece and Germany and Italy; and +pottery from every where. His studio was the envy of all his brother +artists, although he himself growled about it profanely, declaring that +he had so much rubbish about him that he could not work, yet +nevertheless declining to part with a single object. + +"I ought to clear the place out," he would say. "My pictures are +getting to look like advertisements of an old clo' shop, and if a man +doesn't change all his properties every year, the sapient critics say +he has become mannered. But I can't let them go; or rather they won't +let me go; they hang on like barnacles to an old hulk." + +The Pagans were six that night, Fenton's place being unfilled. The +delinquency of the absent artist was a good deal commented upon, yet +always as if an effort were made to keep the subject out of the +conversation. It came up again and again, and that not unnaturally, +since it was necessarily in every man's thoughts. + +"He's a mellifluous coward, now isn't he?" Bently remarked, with his +usual picturesque disregard of the conventional use of words. "The +average American couldn't have been more sneaking." + +"He was always afraid of the rough grain of life," Rangely responded. +"I always told him he was a born coward. He could never serve any cause +that wouldn't give him a uniform of broadcloth. But he was born for +something better than tagging after Calvin and his tribe, heaven +knows." + +"Bah!" went on Bently, "the bad taste of it! I could get over every +thing else, but the bad taste of proving a sneak, and giving up every +thing worth while." + +Somebody threw in a quotation from Browning's _Lost Leader_, and +then Grant Herman, trying to turn the conversation, took up Bently's +remark. + +"You're right, Tom," he said, "in your view of taste. Taste is +sublimated morality. It is the appreciation of the proportion and +fitness of all things in the universe, and of course it is above simple +morality, for that is founded upon a partial view. Taste is the +universal, where a system of morals is the local." + +"Can't you say that of art?" asked Rangely. "I should think art is the +universal, where religion is the provincial. A religion expresses the +needs and the aspirations of a race or a country, while art embodies +the aspirations and attributes of humanity." + +"Good!" Bently responded. "That is better than I should have said it, +but it's my belief, all the same. There are so few people who have +imagination enough even to understand what one means by saying that art +is the only thing in the world worth living for. Why, art is the +supreme expression of humanity; the apotheosis of all the best there is +in the race." + +"I don't see that," objected another. "Isn't religion the expression of +the longings of the soul, or whatever there is in us we call soul? I +can't say it well, but it seems to me you talk of religions, not +religion." + +"People seldom take the trouble to make that distinction. He who +attacks any of the religions is generally set down as striking at +religion itself." + +"Religion," returned Bently, "is the expression of fear, and nothing +else, if you sift it to the bottom. Knowledge kills so-called religion +as surely as it does those lower forms of belief which it is nowadays +the fashion to dub superstition. It is precisely the same feeling that +builds churches and that rhymes the country hag's charms. Fairies and +saints are double and twisted cousins, after all." + +"But religion," persisted the German, "is more than the expression of +fear; it is the embodiment of the aspirations of mankind; of the +instinct and desire for worship." + +"For worshipping something," amended Tom. "That is the same thing +differently phrased." + +"No, it isn't, either. To yearn for the higher is not to show that we +fear it, but that we long to grow like it. It is a confession of +incompleteness, of weakness, I grant you; but a thousand times no to +your calling it fear." + +"I confess to having been hasty, and modify my words so far as to say; +an expression of fear or weakness." + +"Is there then any shame in acknowledging weakness?" demanded the +German, pushing him as hard as he was able. "It certainly is honest." + +"Is there any shame to formulating fear?" retorted the other, deftly +evading him. + +"Then see how religion always appeals to art to help out its ultimate +expression," observed Rangely. + +"And how it has failed," added Bently, "when it has not had art to help +it. Puritanism tried to get on without art, and where is Puritanism? +You couldn't find a trace of it, if it hadn't come down on its +marrow-bones and begged art to build its churches, compose its music, +and regulate its rituals." + +"It is no more fair to say that," objected another Pagan, doggedly, +"than to say that art has gone to religion for help. Their accounts are +pretty evenly balanced." + +"Nonsense!" Rangely returned. "Art has never gained by being religious, +but by being art; but religion owes its hold largely to the help art +has given it." + +"And it has paid its debts by blackguarding art from every pulpit it +has builded for it." + +"As Fenton used to say," Ainsworth remarked, "art has been used as the +sugar-coating to the bitter pill of religion." + +"Oh, Fenton again," Bently exclaimed impatiently. "What did you bring +him up for? Who the devil would have thought Fenton would have turned +out so?" + +"I can tell you a piece of news," said Rangely. "The Election Committee +blackballed Calvin this afternoon." + +"Good!" cried they all; and some body added: "But Fenton said he'd +resign if Calvin wasn't elected." + +"Resign," echoed Rangely, "I guess he'll have to. He's been sent to +Coventry by half the Club now for that Graves affair." + +"The Graves affair?" some one queried. "What's that? What else has he +been doing? If a man starts to go to the devil, it does seem as if he +never could get ahead fast enough." + +"Miss Graves was going to buy one of Flackerman's pictures, and heaven +knows he needs the money; and Fenton, who has always pretended to be +Flack's friend, talked her into taking one of his instead; or rather he +got Calvin to go to her and do it. It was a stunning Flackerman, too; +and we were all rejoicing over his luck." + +"I would not be too ready to believe that story," Grant Herman said. "I +don't think Fenton's gone utterly to the bad all at once. He's living +expensively, they say, and possibly he let Calvin go to Miss Graves; +but I don't believe Arthur ever originated that sneaking scheme, and I +shouldn't be surprised if he never knew the rights of the case." + +"He's done what so many artists have been bullied into doing before," +Ainsworth observed. "If he has sold his birthright for a mess of +pottage, that is precisely what the patrons of art in this country +demand that every man shall do who comes here. I could tell you of a +dozen good fellows who've been spoiled in that way. I am far enough +outside to look on in an unbiased way; but they treat us architects in +the same fashion. Lots of the most rubbishy and conventional men we +have, started out to be fair and work from conviction; and they simply +had the choice between subservience and starvation, and cases of the +choice of death from starvation haven't been over plenty." + +"Oh, a man is known by the tailor he keeps," threw in Rangely; +"especially if he doesn't pay him." + +"It's all a game of cut-throat," Bently remarked philosophically; "art +and business alike." + +"I should hate to have my throat cut," observed the German Pagan in a +matter of fact tone; "it must let a dreadful draught into the system." + +"Oh, if you were beheaded," cried Rangely, "you'd turn into a capital +beer fountain, so your friends would find some consolation, even in +your loss." + +A diversion was caused here by the production of a splendid Japanese +punch-bowl, supported upon a teakwood stand. In it the host proceeded +to brew a potent and steaming mixture, whose fragrance must have +delighted the jocund gods of jollity and laughter. Tom was notorious +for being chronically in pecuniary difficulties, but he was always +adding to his collection of _bibelots_, and he never was known to +lack the means of concocting a glorious punch. + +"Ye gods!" exclaimed Ainsworth, "how good that smells. It almost +overcomes the general mustiness of Tom's den here, which usually has +all the odors of the Ghetto from which his things are dragged." + +"Casper is intoxicated already with the mere fumes," retorted Bently +good humoredly. "He's bound to fill a drunkard's grave sooner or +later." + +"No; I never shall," chuckled the other. "I'm altogether too good +natured to crowd the drunkard out." + +This sally was received with applause, and the glasses being filled, +the usual toasts to the goddess Pasht and to art were drank. + +"And to our seven," went on Herman, holding up his glass, and going on +with the formula they had, half unconsciously, fallen into the habit of +using, although they made no pretense of having a ritual. + +But he set his glass down untasted, suddenly remembering that their +ranks were broken, and the others followed his example. + +"The difference between religion and art," broke out Rangely, +hurriedly, to cover the awkward silence which followed, "is that +religion is a matter of tradition, of convention; it rests upon +authority, while art springs from inner conviction." + +"Sophistry," retorted the German, picking up the gauntlet; "there have +been a good many things said here to-night which sound well but won't +stand fire. It is precisely for following conventions in art that we +blame Fenton." + +"And that proves my point." + +"No, it doesn't; there's as much art that depends upon tradition as +there is religion." + +"No," replied Rangely. "In so far as art gets its inspiration from +fossil tradition it is lifeless and indeed ceases to be art. Religion +presupposes something exterior; while art is the outgrowth of the +individual's own mind, the best expression of his inner strength." + +"Religion," Herman threw in, "demands the existence of the unknown; art +only the existence of the inexpressible." + +"Yet art devotes itself to expression." + +"Yes, but more to suggesting. It phrases the possible so as to suggest +that which is above and beyond expression, yet toward which it helps +the emotions and the imagination. I think a man's soul a matter of very +little moment as compared to his imagination, and it is because art +ministers to the latter that I place it above religion." + +The talk was diverted here by some laughing remark which led on to a +train of gay badinage. The German tried to bring the conversation back +to serious levels, but in vain. + +"Oh, what fustian we've given ourselves up to to-night," laughed +Rangely. + +"It amuses me to hear you fellows discuss religion," Tom Bently +observed. "You wander round the subject as aimlessly as the young women +in the first half hour of a Harvard symphony concert." + +"Never you mind, Bently," rejoined Ainsworth. "You are sure of coming +out all right; the gods are bound to protect humbug, for on it depends +their own existence." + +They drifted in little groups to different parts of the studio, +admiring this or that bit of grace or beauty. Then the German, who was +a professional musician, tuned an old mandolin with which a Venetian +lover some star-lit night centuries ago, may have serenaded his loved +one from his gondola; and to its trembling accompaniment sang a quaint +chansonette, his Teutonic accent making havoc among its liquid Italian +syllables. Then Rangely possessed himself of a strange African +instrument, a crooked gourd, hollowed and strung with twisted tree +fibers, and joined to the notes of the mandolin, its weird, cicada-like +harshness. The duet moved Bently to clear a miscellaneous collection of +articles from the lid of a spinnet of the time of Louis XIV., upon +which be-powdered and be-patched dames, long forgotten, had strummed +pretty little tinkling tunes, while all about them other +marionette-like ladies and gallants played at little tinkling loves, as +pretty and as empty. + +The three instruments, so strangely matched, went off together in a +variety of music, imparting to every thing an uncanny, ghostly flavor, +as if these airs came in wild echoes from the shores of some dead past. + +"Oh, stop that," Herman cried, at last. "It's too melancholy. Your +instruments are all dead; and it's no use trying to get live music out +of them." + +For reply the German led off in a drearisome minor folk-tune, Rangely +and Bently improvising their parts with some skill, albeit not always +with perfect harmony. + +"Ye Gods!" cried Ainsworth, seizing the mandolin out of the player's +grasp. "Is this a Hottentot funeral? Here, Fred, give me that +diabolical gourd; it is haunted by the soul of a Caffre medicine man." + +"I say, fellows," spoke Rangely, as the din subsided, "I move we make +this a funeral, by breaking up the Pagans. Of course there is nothing +to hinder our meeting round at each other's places whenever we want to; +but we've either got to turn Fenton out or break up. I, for one, am +coward enough to prefer to break up." + +"So say I," said Herman. "When once a circle like this is broken, there +is an end of it. It can't be patched together." + +They looked at each other in silence a moment. To disband seemed like +an acknowledgment of defeat. Many another band of ardent souls has +known the feeling, with its dreary ache, although it oftener happens +that a circle of this kind disappears by the gradual dropping away of +its numbers one by one rather than that its members are brought face to +face with the necessity of owning that its existence had resulted in +failure. Whatever their faults and extravagances, whatever their errors +and intolerance, they were sincere, self sacrificing and ardent beyond +the men who made up the world about them; a group of eager lovers of +truth and art who had been drawn together by mutual aims and +enthusiasms. Their fierceness had been in defense of honesty and +sincerity, their disinterestedness was attested by the fact that any +one of them might have made his peace with Philistia and been rewarded +for his complaisance had he so chosen. Doubtless they had their faults +and foibles, yet their comradeship, in its essential purport had been +true and noble. + +They in no wise abandoned their aims in agreeing with the proposition +to disband, but about their fellowship had been a certain un-phrased +tenderness, at which, if put in word, any one of them might have +scoffed, yet which nevertheless they all felt strongly in their secret +hearts, and all were conscious that after this defection of Fenton, the +circle could never be perfect again. They did not discuss the matter +now, but in the interval of silence each acknowledged to himself that +to disband was best; and briefly each gave his assent; all soberly, +some almost gruffly. + +And so it came about that the goddess Pasht lost her last band of +followers, and the Pagans assembled no more forever. + + + + +XXXVI. + +AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND. + Merchant of Venice; v.--2. + + +"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the +background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes +differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you'd see." + +"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage," +Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not +logical." + +"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still +say yes." + +It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come +to Fenton's studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have +that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not +choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife. + +"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature's protest against +civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on +her own ground, am I not?" + +"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote +Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what +is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be +honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must +be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever +acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have." + +"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too +self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to +win society? Society is ready enough to take them in." + +"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, +'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage +seems already to have sucked the life out of you." + +"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot +make me angry." + +"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is +your fault." + +"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, +"oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself." + +He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the +building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen. +He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of +the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite. + +"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence. +"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why +you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well +connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, +Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling +the Egyptians." + +"But that was in departing from their country." + +"We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only +disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect +you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself. +You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I +am able." + +She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives +seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his +marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her +impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing. + +"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not +her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?" + +"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look +coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?" + +"You are speaking of your wife!" + +"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or +of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long +ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do +precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime? +Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of +being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of +whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example." + +"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple +question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of +hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush +mark of your canvas there!" + +For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat +upright in his cushions and faced her. + +"Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You +cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I +asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with +the Philistines!" + +He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off +some disgusting touch. + +"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, +"far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I +prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever +else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would +like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes +me beautifully." + +He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait +contemptuously. + +"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming +thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. +The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving +them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't +enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of +standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by +enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, +she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while +they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help +her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with +the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not +wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most +part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial +good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you +choose." + +He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose +as he finished. + +"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own +judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have +ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race." + +"But I acknowledge my faults." + +"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment +is not reparation, though many try to make it so." + +She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand +upon the latch. + +"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet +again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can." + +"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at +him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you." + +"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil. +I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is +true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as +through her sincerity." + +"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen. + +"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed +my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word 'Pardon.'" + +"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than +either would be a blank! Let me pass!" + + + + +XXXVII. + +FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + Richard II.; ii.--2. + + +The outward bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle +attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people +who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying +little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, +while her glance was cast to the ground, save when she raised her head +in speaking. + +The Italian from time to time took Helen's hand in hers and kissed it +fondly. + +"I pray the Madonna for you every night," she whispered in her native +tongue, "that she will give you a safe voyage." + +The sculptor watched all that went on about them, waiting with some +inward impatience for the moment when the duty of escorting Mrs. +Greyson on board would give him an opportunity of being a moment alone +with her. + +"We shall miss you much," he said, feeling that any thing would be +better than the silence which hedged them in amid the noisy bustle of +the throng. "We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?" + +He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's +face, and for her alone he had ears. + +"Yes," he said again with nervous platitude, when once more they had +lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife +nor myself has any friend to take your place." + +Some faint accent in the tone in which he referred to his three hours' +bride made the widow look up suddenly. To the question in her eyes his +glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame +her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be +miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall +and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as time went on? + +But all these questionings Helen had answered with stern bravery during +the sad wakeful nights and lonely days just past. She had first +convinced herself that it was right that Herman should redeem his +old-time pledge to Ninitta, and after that she forced herself to the +bitterer task of realizing that when time had obliterated somewhat the +clearness of her own image in the sculptor's heart, something of his +old affection for the Italian might be rekindled in his generous, warm +nature, always tenderly chivalrous towards woman, and sure to prove +doubly so to one dependent upon him. It was hard, but Helen +unflinchingly analyzed the nature of her lover, and while she could not +believe that he would ever feel for his wife the grand passion which +she had herself inspired in his breast, she saw for him a tranquil +future in which his wife's devotion would be met with enduring, even +with increasing affection, which if not love, would be so like it that +Ninitta, at least, would never distinguish; and in which her husband +would find comfort and warmth, if not fire and aspiration. + +She had a harder struggle when the thought came to her, "Have I not led +him into the one thing he most dreads and despises, an act of +insincerity? Can a loveless marriage be honest?" But she answered her +doubting heart; "No; he has told Ninitta that he does not love her as +of old, and he is not deceiving her. It is my own selfishness that puts +this thought into my mind." It may be that Helen was wrong, for the +influence of her Puritan training had left a strong impress upon her +moral sense in a regard for the sanctity of a pledge, especially to its +spirit rather than its letter, so deep as to be almost morbid; yet at +least she was self sacrificing and never more truly consistent than in +the seeming inconsistency of urging this marriage. + +"Come," was Herman's word, almost a command, when the crowd upon the +steamer's deck began definitely to separate into those who were to go +and those who remained. "You must go aboard. Ninitta, stand just where +you are until I come back. I will be gone only an instant." + +Helen turned and kissed Ninitta, a sharp pang stabbing her very soul, +as the thought came to her: "He will love her; she is his wife, and he +will learn to love her!" Then she put her arm upon Herman's in silence. + +She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her +excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the +steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on +deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where +the two were alone. + +"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it +is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide." + +"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith +between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no +matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it +must be right." + +He bent forward to kiss her. + +"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I +have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now +we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave +you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to +love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to +each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not +forget me." + +"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered +he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his +cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future." + +She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer +sounded out sharply upon the air. + +"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, +even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she +added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, +though I must not share it." + +He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but +her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife +awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his. + +"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, +lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and +afraid without you." + +He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he +withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning +over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down +the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by +their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight. + +FINIS. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pagans, by Arlo Bates + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + +***** This file should be named 8671-8.txt or 8671-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/6/7/8671/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes 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: The Pagans + +Author: Arlo Bates + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8671] +Release Date: August, 2005 +First Posted: July 31, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE PAGANS + +By + +Arlo Bates + + + +The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. + _All's Well That Ends Well_; iv--3 + + + + +DEDICATION. + + +To those who would be Pagans, did any such organization +exist, I take pleasure in offering this attempt to picture a phase +of life which they know. + + + + She answered, "cast thy rosary on the ground; bind on thy + shoulder the thread of paganism; throw stones at the glass of + piety; and quaff from a full goblet." + _Persian Religious Hymn._ + + + +CONTENTS. + + I. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE + II. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT + III. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT + IV. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT + V. THE BITTER PAST + VI. A BOND OF AIR + VII. IN WAY OF TASTE + VIII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE + IX. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE + X. O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT + XI. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED + XII. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED + XIII. THE ASSAY OF ART + XIV. THIS IS NOT A BOON + XV. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL + XVI. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH + XVII. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES + XVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE + XIX. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS + XX. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED + XXI. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH + XXII. UPON A CHURCH-BENCH + XXIII. HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT, + XXIV. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING, + XXV. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME, + XXVI. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION, + XXVII. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE, + XXVIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE, + XXIX. A NECESSARY EVIL, + XXX. HOW CHANCES MOCK, + XXXI. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY, + XXXII. A SYMPATHY OF WOE, + XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN, + XXXIV. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY, + XXXV. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP, + XXXVI. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND, + XXXVII. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + + + + +PAGANS + + +I. + +SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE. + Measure for Measure, v--i. + + +A fine, drizzling rain was striking against the windows of a cosy third +floor sitting-room, obscuring what in pleasant weather was a fine +distant view of the Charles river. The apartment was evidently that of +a woman, as numerous details of arrangement and articles of feminine +use suggested; and quite as evidently it was the home of a person of +taste and refinement, and of one, too, who had traveled. + +Arthur Fenton, a slender young artist, with elegant figure and deep set +eyes, was lounging in an easy chair in an attitude well calculated to +show to advantage his graceful outlines. For occupation he was turning +over a portfolio of sketches, whose authorship was indicated by the +attitude of the lady seated near by. + +She was a woman of commanding presence, with full lips, whose +expression was contradicted by the almost haughty carriage of her fine +head and the keen glance of her eye, which indicated too much character +for the mere pleasure-seeker. Her hair was of a rich chestnut, and she +wore a dress of steel gray cashmere, relieved at the throat by a knot +of pale orange, which harmonized admirably with her clear complexion. +She watched her companion as if secretly anxious for his good opinion +of her drawings, yet too proud to betray any feeling in the matter. He, +for his part, turned them over with seeming listlessness, breaking out +now and then with some abrupt remark. + +"Yes," he said suddenly, after a ten minutes' silence, "I'm going to be +married at once. It will be 'a marriage in the bush,' as the Suabians +call an impecunious match, since neither of us has any money; and I, at +least, haven't so great a superfluity of brains that in this +intelligent age of the world I am ever likely to make much by selling +myself; and that is the only way any body gets any money nowadays." + +"I hardly think you'd be willing to sell," his companion answered, "no +matter how good the market." + +"There's where you are wrong," he answered, looking up with a sudden +frown, "the worst thing about me is that with sufficient inducement--or +even merely from the temptation of an especially good opportunity--I +should sell myself body and soul to the Philistines." + +"One would hardly fancy it, from the way you talk of Peter Calvin and +his followers." + +"Oh, as to that," retorted the artist, "don't you see that judicious +opposition increases my market value when I am ready to sell? If I +could only be sufficiently prominent in my antagonism, I might +absolutely fix my own price." + +The lady made no answer, but regarded him more intently than ever. + +"That's a good thing," he broke out again, holding up a drawing. "Why +don't you do that in marble, or better still, in bronze?" + +"I am putting it up in clay," she answered. "I thought I had shown it +to you. It is to be fired as my first experiment in a big piece of +terra-cotta. That is the first sketch; I think I have improved upon +it." + +It was the study for a bas-relief representing the months, twelve +characteristic figures running forward with the utmost speed. Gifts +dropped from their hands as they ran; from the fingers of June fell +flowers, from those of August and September ripened fruits, upon which +November and December trampled ruthlessly. January, in his haste, +overturned an altar against which February stumbles. + +"It is melancholy enough," Fenton observed, regarding it closely. "How +melancholy every thing is now-a-days?" + +"To a man about to be married?" she asked, with a fine smile. + +"Oh, always to me. The fact that I am going to be married does not +prevent my still being myself." + +"Unfortunately not," she returned, with a faint suspicion of sarcasm in +her tone. "You pique yourself upon being somber." + +"I dare say," answered he, a trifle petulantly. "Pain has become a +habit with me; discontent is about the only luxury I can afford, heaven +knows!" + +"Unless it is gorgeous cravats." + +"Oh, that," Fenton said, putting his hand to the blue and gold tie at +his throat. "I'm trying to furbish up my old body and decrepit heart +against my nuptials, so I invested fifty cents in this tie." + +"You couldn't have done it cheaper," remarked she; "though, perhaps," +she added dryly, "it is all the rejuvenation is worth." + +Fenton smiled grimly and again applied himself to the examination of +the drawings, while the other looked out at the rain. + +"Boston has more climate, and that far worse," she remarked, "than any +other known locality." + +"Does that mean that you are going to Herman's this afternoon?" asked +Fenton. + +"I should have gone this morning if you had not insisted upon my +wasting my time simply because you had determined to waste yours." + +Fenton laughed. + +"You are frank to a guest," he said. "I wished to be congratulated on +my marriage." + +"I shall not congratulate you," she answered. "You are spoiled. The +women have petted you too much." + +"According to the old fairy tale all goes well with the man of whom the +women are fond." + +"I remember," she said. "I always pitied their wives." + +"I shall treat Edith well." + +"You are too good-natured not to, I suppose; especially when you look +forward to your marriage with such rapture." + +"But, Helen, have I ever pretended to believe in marriage? Marriage is +a crime! Think of the wretched folly of those who talk of the holiness +of love's being protected by the sanctities of marriage. If love is +holy, let it have way; if it is not, all the sacraments priests can +devise cannot sanctify it." + +"Then why, Arthur, do you marry at all?" + +"Because marriage is a necessary evil as society is at present +constituted." + +"But," Helen said slowly, "you who pretend to have so little regard for +society--" + +"Ah, there it is," he interrupted. "Man is gregarious by instinct; he +must do as his fellows do. He must submit to the most absurd +_convenances_ of his fellowmen, as one sheep jumps where another +did though the bar be taken away. If he were strong enough to stand +alone he might take conventions by the throat and be a god!" + +His outburst was too vehement and sudden not to come from some +underlying current of deep feeling, rather than from the present +conversation. He had risen while speaking, his head thrown back, his +eyes sparkling. His companion regarded him with admiration, not +unmixed, however, with amusement. + +"And you," she said, "choose to call yourself a man without +enthusiasms." + +"Yes," replied he, smiling and regaining his seat, "I am a man without +enthusiasms." + +"That is the cleverest thing you ever said," Helen continued, musingly. +"And so we understand you intend to be ruled by conventionality and +marry?" + +"Precisely; it would be unjust to Edith to even talk to her of my +views." + +"I should hope so!" exclaimed his hostess. "But you will at least have +her to yourself, and that pays for every thing." + +"Oh, _peutetre!_" Fenton returned dubiously, perfectly well aware +that the remark had been made to elicit comment, yet too fond of +talking to resist temptation and leave it unanswered, "_peutetre_, +though I never believed in the desert-island theory. It is more in your +line; you still have faith in it." + +"Oh, I do," she rejoined quickly; "and so would you if you were in +love. You'd be content to be on a rock in the mid ocean if she were +there." + +"Love on a desert island," returned the young man, smiling +significantly; "Oh, _le premier jour, c'est bon; le deuxieme jour, ce +n'est pas si bon; le troisieme jour--mon Dieu, mais comment on +s'ennuie!_" + +"No, no, no," Helen broke in impetuously. "Good, always! Always, +always, or never!" + +Fenton threw back his head and burst into a shout of laughter. + + "'Twere errant folly to presume, + Love's flame could burn and not consume," + +he sang, going off again into peals of laughter. "Good by, _mon +amie_; oh, _mais comment on s'en--_" + +"Stop," interrupted she. "I'll have no more blasphemy." + +"Good-by, then," he said, picking up his hat. + +"You may as well stay to lunch," his hostess said rising. + +"No," returned he. "I must go and write to Edith." + +And off he went, humming: + + "'Twere errant folly to presume + Love's flame could burn and not consume." + + + + +II. + +THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. + Measure for Measure; iv--i. + +As many of the Boston clocks as ever permitted themselves so far to +break through their constitutional reserve as to speak above a whisper, +had announced in varying tones that it was midnight, yet the group of +men seated in easy attitudes before the fire in one of the +sitting-rooms of the St. Filipe Club showed no signs of breaking up. +Indeed, the room was so pleasant and warm, with its artistically +combined colors, its good pictures and glowing grates, and the storm +outside raged so savagely, beating its wind and sleet against the +windows, that a reluctance to issue from the clubhouse door was only +natural, and there would be little room for surprise should the men +conclude to remain where they were until daylight. + +The conversation, carried on amid clouds of fragrant tobacco smoke and +with potations, not excessive but comfortably frequent, was quiet and +unflagging, possessing, for the most part, that mellow quality which is +seldom attained before the small hours and the third cigar. + +"Yes, virtue has to be its own reward," Tom Bently was saying lightly, +"for, don't you see, the people who practice it are too narrow-minded +to appreciate any thing else." + +"And that makes it the most poorly paid of all the professions," was +the retort of Fred Rangely, who was lounging in a big easy chair; +"except literature, that is. Even sin is said to get death for its +wage, and that is something." + +"Virtue may be an inestimable prize for any thing you newspaper men can +tell. It is not a commodity you are used to handling." + +"Literature has little to do with virtue, it is true," was the +response. "Who would read a novel about virtuous people, for instance? +I'd as soon study the catechism." + +"How art has to occupy itself with iniquity," Fenton observed with a +philosophical puff of his cigar. "Or what people call iniquity; though +a truer definition would be nature." + +"Painting occupies itself with iniquity in its models," Rangely said +lazily. "I heard to-day--" + +"No scandals," interrupted Grant Herman, good humoredly. "You are going +to tell the story about Flackerman, I know." + +The speaker was the most noticeable man in the group. Tom Bently, an +artist, was a tall, swarthy fellow with thin black beard, stubble-like +hair, and a gypsyish look. Next came Fred Rangely, an author of some +reputation, of whom his friends expected great things, rather short in +stature, thick-set, and with a good-tempered, intelligent face. +Fenton's appearance has already been touched upon; he was of elegant +figure, with a face intellectual, high-bred, but marred by a suspicion +of superciliousness. Amid these friends, Herman gained something by +contrast with each and naturally became the center of the group. This +prominence was partly due to his figure, of large mold, finely formed +and firmly knit, carrying always an air of restful strength and +composure which made itself felt in whatever company he found himself. +His head, although not out of proportion with his fine shoulders and +trunk, was somewhat massive, a fact which was emphasized a little by +the profusion of his locks, now plentifully sprinkled with gray. His +face was indicative of much character, the lips firm and full, the eyes +large and dark, now serious under their heavy brows and now twinkling +with contagious merriment. + +"It isn't every model you can talk scandal about," chuckled Bently, in +reply to Herman's remark. "We had a devilishly pretty fuss in Nick +Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the new +model." + +"What new model?" inquired Fenton, arranging himself into an effective +pose before the fire. + +"Do you remember the picture of an Italian girl that Tom Demming sent +to the Academy exhibition two years ago? A homely face with lots of +character in it, and a splendid pose?" + +"You mean the one he called _Marietta?_ It was well done, if I +remember." + +"Oh, stunningly. That's the girl. She's just landed, and Demming gave +her letters to me. She's a staving good model!" + +"But she isn't pretty." + +"No; but she is suggestive. She has one of those faces that you can +make all sorts of things out of. Rollins made a sketch of her head that +is stunning; a lovely thing; and it looked like her too. Then her +figure is perfect, and what is more, she knows how to pose. She meets +an idea half way, you know, and hits the expression wonderfully. She +has given me points for my picture every time she has been at the +studio." + +"Is her name Ninitta?" Grant Herman asked. + +"Yes; do you know any thing about her?" + +"I think I've seen her in Rome. But what is she doing on this side of +the water?" + +To Arthur Fenton's keen perception there seemed more feeling in the +tone than an inquiry into the affairs of a stranger would be likely to +evoke, but he gave the matter no especial thought. + +"Yes," he echoed lightly, "what is she here for? There is no art in +this country. New York is the home of barbarism and Boston of +Philistinism; while Cincinnati is a chromo imitation of both. She'd +better have staid abroad." + +"Your remark is true, Arthur," Bently laughed, "if it isn't very +relevant. What people in this country want isn't art at all, but what +some Great Panjandrum or other abroad has labeled art. They don't know +what is good." + +"That is so true," was the retort, "that I almost wonder they don't buy +your pictures, Tom." + +"But why does the girl come to America?" persisted Herman, with a faint +trace of irritation in his tone. "She could do far better at home." + +"Oh, Demming wrote that she was bound to come. You can never tell what +ails a woman anyhow. Probably she has a lover over here somewhere." + +Herman made no reply save by an involuntary lowering of his heavy +brows, and Rangely brought the conversation back to its starting-point +by asking: + +"But what about Nick Featherstone?" + +"Oh, Nick? Well, Nick tried to kiss her yesterday, and she offered to +stab him with some sort of a devilish dagger arrangement she carries +about like an opera heroine." + +"Featherstone is always a strong temptation to an honest man's boot," +growled Herman out of his beard, as he sat with his head sunk upon his +breast, staring into the fire. + +"They had a scene that wouldn't have done discredit to a first-class +opera-bouffe company," Bently went on, laughing at the remembrance. + +"Nick was fool enough to hollo to somebody in the next room, and the +result was that we all came trooping in like a chorus. It was absurd +enough." + +And he laughed afresh. + +"But the girl?" persisted Grant Herman, not removing his gaze from the +fire. "How did she take it?" + +"Oh, she was as calm and cold as you please. She gathered herself +together and went off without any fuss." + +"I wish when you are done with her, you'd send her round to me," Herman +rejoined. "I want a model for a figure, and if I remember her, she'll +do capitally." + +He rose as he spoke, with the air of a man who intends going home. + +"By the way," Fenton said to him, "isn't the Pagan night next week? +Don't you have it this month?" + +"Yes; you'll get your invitations sometime or other. Good night all." + +"Oh, don't break good company," Rangely remonstrated. "I have half a +bottle here, and I do hate an alcoholic soliloquy." + +But the movement for departure was general, and in a few moments more +the members of the company were wending their individual ways homeward +through the pelting rain. + + + + +III. + +THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT. + Othello; iv.--i. + + +The sun shone brightly in at the windows of a little bare studio next +morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the +night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, +turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over her modeling. + +She seemed to find in her work a joy which accorded well with the +bright day. Pinned to the wall was an improved sketch of the bas-relief +whose design had attracted Fenton's notice in her portfolio, while +before the artist stood a copy in clay, upon which she was working with +those mysterious touches which to the uninitiated are mere meaningless +dabs, yet under which the figures were growing into sightliness and +beauty. + +Suddenly her song was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, +followed by a tap upon her door. + +"Come," she called; and Grant Herman entered in response to the +invitation. + +He carried in his arms a large vase, about whose sides green and golden +dragons coiled themselves in fantastic relief. + +"Your vase came from the kiln," he said, "and I knew you would want to +see it at once. It is the most successful firing they have done here." + +"Oh, I am so glad," she returned, laying down her modeling tools, and +approaching him eagerly. "I was sure there wouldn't be a head or a tail +left by the time the poor monsters came out of the fiery furnace. What +a splendid color that back is! And that golden fin is gorgeous." + +"Yes, Mrs. Greyson," Herman said, "you have produced a veritable +dragon's brood this time. I can almost hear them hiss." + +"Do you know," she responded, smoothing the glittering shapes with half +chary touches. "I should not be wholly willing to have the vase in my +room at night. They might, you know, come to life and go gliding about +in a ghastly way." + +"I always wondered," the sculptor observed, "that Eve had the courage +to talk with the serpent. Do you suppose she squealed when she saw +him?" + +"Oh, no, she probably divined that mischief was brewing, and that +contented her." + +Herman had set the vase where all its gorgeous hues were brought out by +the sun, which sparkled and danced upon every spine and scale of the +writhing monsters. He walked away from it to observe the effect at a +greater distance. + +"There is no pleasure like that of creating," he said. "Man is a god +when he can look on his work and pronounce it good." + +"Which is seldom," she returned, "unless in the one instant after its +completion when we still see what we intended rather than what we have +made." + +"It is fortunate our work cannot rise up to reproach us for the wide +difference between our intents and our performances. Fancy one of my +statues taking me to task because it hasn't the glory it had in my +brain." + +"It is on that account," Mrs. Greyson said smiling, "that I fancy +Galatea must have been most uncomfortable to live with. Whenever +Pygmalion found fault, she had always the retort ready: 'At least I am +exactly what you chose to make me.' Poor Pygmalion!" + +"It was no more true than in the case of every man that marries; we all +bow down to ideals, I suppose. Except," he added with a little +hesitation, "myself, of course." + +The words were somewhat awkward in the hesitating accent which gave +them a suggestiveness at which the faintest of flushes mounted to her +cheek. She bent her observations more closely on the vase. + +"It is fired so much better than the last miserable failure," observed +she, going to a shelf and reaching after a dusty vase, massive and +fantastic, which had been ruined in the kiln. + +"Let me help you," Herman said. + +But she had already loosened the vase, which proved heavier than she +expected, and it was only by darting forward, and throwing his arms +about her, that the sculptor was enabled to save her from a severe +blow. The vase fell crashing to the floor, breaking into heavy shards, +rattling the windows and the casts upon the wall by the concussion. + +An exclamation escaped him. He had drawn Mrs. Greyson backward, and for +a brief instant, held her in his strong clasp. It was an accident which +to mere acquaintances might mean nothing; to lovers, every thing. +Herman was for a moment pale with the fear that Helen might be injured; +then the hot blood surged into his cheeks as he released his hold and +stepped back, He bent over the fragments of the vase that she might not +see his face, and by so doing, as he reflected afterward, he failed to +perceive what was her expression. He straightened himself with an +impetuous movement, and came a step nearer. + +"How can you be so careless?" he demanded, almost with irritation. "It +might have killed you." + +"I did not remember that it was so heavy," she returned, a little pale +and panting. "Do you think I was trying to pull it on my head? I am +very much obliged, though. You have saved me a heavy blow at least. +There is not much left of that unlucky vase. It was always +ill-starred." + +"All's well that ends well," returned the sculptor, sufficiently +recovering his self-control to speak lightly; "only don't run such a +risk another time." + +"Oh, I assure you," she replied, "I do not make my vases either to +break my head or to be broken themselves. I shall take better care of +this one, you may be confident." + +"I was more concerned for yourself than for the vase." + +"For myself it really does not so much matter." + +"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so." + +"Oh,--my friends!" + +Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom or +exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of +interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares +of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant +and perplexing. + +She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the +modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand reflections +danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in the +sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of +jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as +the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling +spines. + +"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed, +twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother +Eve, do you think?" + +"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd +brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the +occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of +it." + +A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand +abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her with +a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The +movement touched her companion as no words could have done. + +"I beg your pardon," he muttered. + +And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly +and quitted the room. + + + + +IV. + +AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT. + Henry VIII.; i.--3. + + +"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur, +that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to +at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the +unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the +wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw +it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago." + +"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never +be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; +and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far +off that I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is +imminent at all." + +"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a +pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is +advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom." + +"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it +altogether until it comes." + +"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll +find when the day of doom swoops down on you." + +They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery +of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe +by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a +little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the +errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being +accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this +might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before their +marriage. + +She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet +representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton +sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, +then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her. + +"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he +remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an +irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out +the catch-penny hand of a beggar." + +"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that +is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real goddess has her +temples here." + +"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the +way you mean." + +A shadow passed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him. + +"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly +about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at +first, but you--" + +"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the +conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma +petite_. Don't mind it." + +"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter +talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--" + +She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because +her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might +offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly +avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new +channel. + +"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are +only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of +questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised +Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here +twice that time already." + +He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and +down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her +face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real +importance to her. + +"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they +descended the wide staircase. + +She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way +collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a +somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed +deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm, +impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with +lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was +placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more +than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the +shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless +eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still +keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer. + +Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have +stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a +way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed. + +"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How +much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give +us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she +would but condescend to speak." + +"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling. + +"But Pasht belies her sex by not being a communicative party," was her +companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a +characteristic of the gods." + +"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even +for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your +cat-headed goddess?" + +"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she +has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the +goddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort +of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose." + +"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith +said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag +from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty. + +"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the +tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of +minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for +this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the +figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but +may come to blows any time." + +He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the +conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr. +Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a +woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the +statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was +waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking: + +"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--" + +"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he +were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further +from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name +by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month +in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no +organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently +puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply. + +"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and +surreptitiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your sex. I'll +come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by." + +He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his +own way. + + + + +V. + +THE BITTER PAST. + All's Well that Ends Well; v.--3. + + +"The Pagans: Friday, Jan. 17. +Pipes, pictures and punch. + GRANT HERMAN." + + +Such was the invitation received one day by each of the Pagans, under a +seal bearing the impress of the goddess Pasht. + +There is little that need be added to Fenton's account of the Pagans. +The society had no organization beyond a rule to meet each month and to +limit its membership to seven; no especial principles beyond an +unformulated although by no means unexpressed antagonism against +Philistinism. Fenton had suggested Pasht as a sort of _dea mater_, +and had furnished the seal bearing the image of that goddess which it +was customary to use upon the notifications of meetings; and for the +rest there was nothing definite to distinguish this group of earnest +and sometimes fiery young men from any other. They doubtless said a +great many foolish things, but they did so many wise ones that it +seemed but reasonable to assume that there must be some grains of +wisdom mingled with whatever dross was to be found in their speech. + +Their views were extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining +astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try +the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were +restrained by any conventionality from a free expression of opinion. + +It was on the afternoon of the day fixed for the Pagan meeting when +Helen Greyson took her way across the Common and through the business +portion of the city to the building down by the wharves where were the +studios of Herman and his pupils. It was feebly raining, the weather +having been decidedly whimsical all that week, and the clouds rolled in +ragged, sullen masses overhead. Helen felt the gloom of the day as a +vague depression which she endeavored in vain to shake off, and +hastened towards her studio, hoping to be able to lose herself in her +work. + +Picking her steps among the piles of fire-brick and terra-cotta which +lumbered the yard and the long shed skirting the building, which was a +terra-cotta manufactory, she let herself in at a side door and went +directly to her studio. + +Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment +studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to +work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition. + +She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon +the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer +to her invitation, Grant Herman entered. + +He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse +bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in +an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, +giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in +his eye harmonized well. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then +stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence. + +"Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil +asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that +despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in +the best of spirits. + +"No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation +in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify +those folds--so." + +As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. +Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and +without thought she said, involuntarily: + +"You have a new ring!" + +"Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an +intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in +Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and +at his death he in turn sent it back to me." + +"But Hoffmeir has been dead several years." + +"More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands." + +The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, +and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the +exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its +origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save +that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal +bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from +the awakening of memories connected with it. + +"It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it +does, so long after Hoffmeir's death." + +"It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with +it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you +can send no answer!" + +The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. +Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having +never before seen him so deeply moved. + +"I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said seemed +intrusive, though of course it was not meant to be." + +"It did not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent +my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." + +"I hope nothing bad has happened," said Helen, quickly. + +"No, nothing; it's only this message from dear old Hoffmeir." + +He walked away and pulled aside the curtain which screened the lower +half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a +vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her +modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how +best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved +inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy +walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of +the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, +and from that turned toward the robust form by the window. + +"Come, Mr. Herman," she said at length, in a tone half jesting, "I +never saw you so somber." + +"It is not that Hoffmeir is dead, poor fellow!" Herman replied, +answering her unspoken question. "I'd made up my mind to endure that, +and any man with his over-sensitive temperament is better off on the +other side of the grass than this any day. I may as well tell you, Mrs. +Greyson, though as a rule I do not find much comfort in blurting out +things. The fact is that Hoffmeir and I quarreled over a girl. We were +both in love with her, like two young fools as we were; but she'd +promised to marry me, and--it was a deal better that she didn't, too. I +thought he tried to take her from me. Now I know I was wrong, and that +Fritz was as high-souled as a god in the matter; but then I sent him +back his ring, and broke off with him and her too. I was a fiery young +fool in those days," he added, with a sad and bitter smile, "a young +fool." + +"And was it never explained?" + +"Never until to-day. He was far too proud a man to call me back." + +"But the girl?" queried Helen, with increasing eagerness. "What did she +do?" + +"Oh, the girl," he repeated, turning away again and directing his gaze +out of the window; "what would you expect her to do? She was only a +peasant; and though I was honest enough then, I outgrew that fever +centuries ago." + +"Yes, you did," returned Helen, with gentle persistence, "but what did +she do?" + +"What do women usually do when they break with one lover? Get another, +I suppose!" + +The words were so hard and coarse to come from a man like Grant Herman +that she involuntarily looked up quickly at him, and perhaps he noticed +the action. + +It was evident that some deep pain had provoked the expression, yet had +found no relief in the rough words. The sculptor turned toward his +companion as if to speak. Then slowly his eyes fell, and he said +firmly, if a little stiffly: + +"I believe I do her injustice. If she ever loved a man she was one who +would love him always." + +He left the little room without more words, his firm, even tread +sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio +was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay +wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in +thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to +give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her +bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she passed +the door of Herman's studio the sculptor opened it. + +"I do not know," he said, extending his hand, "what made me so rude +this afternoon. I am a bear of a fellow, but I had meant to treat you +well." + +He had fully recovered his composure, but his evident desire to efface +the impression he had made naturally rendered it more lasting in +Helen's mind. + + + + +VI. + +A BOND OF AIR. + Troilus and Cressida; i.--3. + + +Had Helen been present at the scene which took place in Herman's studio +earlier in the afternoon, she would perhaps have wondered less at his +disturbance. + +In response to the sculptor's request made at the Club when Ninitta's +name was first mentioned, Bently, when the girl finished posing for +him, sent her to the sculptor's studio. + +She came a day or two later than Bently had directed her, not +hastening, although for six years she had shaped her entire life to the +end of meeting Grant Herman. She came into the studio as calmly and as +quietly as if it were some familiar place which she had left but +yesterday, and she greeted the sculptor with as even and musical tone +as in the old Roman days when as yet nothing had occurred to stir her +peaceful bosom. + +For his part the man stood and looked at her in silence. Even when a +ghost from the past has appeared at his especial summons, one seldom +sees it unmoved, and Herman was conscious that his heart beat more +quickly, that he breathed more heavily as Ninitta let fall behind her +the rug _portiere_ and came towards him through the studio. + +She had a dark, homely face, only redeemed from positive ugliness by +her deep, expressive eyes. Her figure was superb; rather slender, lithe +and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was +long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep +of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably +adapted to display the lines of her supple form. As she walked down the +studio, setting her feet firmly and carrying her head with fine poise, +Grant Herman felt the ghost of an old passion stir in his heart. + +"How do you do?" he composedly answered her greeting. "You have +improved since I saw you last." + +"Thank you," she said, in a rich voice with strong but pleasant accent. +"I have had time." + +"But improvement is not always a question of time," returned he. "Look +at me." + +"You have grown old," Ninitta commented, regarding him keenly. "You are +gray now." + +"Yes," retorted the other lightly, "I am an old man. It is really a +very long time since you posed for me in my little den at Rome." + +"You remember those days perhaps, sometimes?" she said, dropping the +long lashes over her eyes. + +A shadow passed over Herman's high brow. + +"Is one likely to forget such days?" he demanded. "Is one likely to +forget how love may be turned to treachery and--" + +"Pardon," the woman interrupted with dignity. "I did not come to be +reproached, _eccelenza_. You have not forgotten Signor Hoffmeir?" + +"No," he answered, with a deepening frown. "I have not forgotten the +man who pretended to be my friend and proved it by stealing my +betrothed." + +"It is well that you have not forgotten," Ninitta went on calmly, but +earnestly, "for I have a message from him. He charged me when he was +dying," she added, crossing herself, "to give it to you with my own +hands. I have been waiting for all these years, but now I am free of my +promise." + +Herman took the packet she extended toward him, and turned abruptly +away. Ninitta seated herself in one of the tall easy chairs, removed +her hat, and began a leisurely survey of the place. The sounds from the +wharf outside, the cries of the sailors, the creaking of the cordage +and the ships came softened and mellowed like the daylight into the +wide, dim studio, giving a certain sense of remoteness by the contrast +they suggested between the silence within and the stir of the world +without. For all her outward calm, Ninitta's heart was beating hotly, +and she longed with a great yearning for a touch from the hand of the +silent man before her; for a word of kindness from his lips. She +watched him furtively, under cover of looking at a cast of Celini's +Perseus upon a bracket above his head, as he stood reading the letter +from Hoffmeir. + +"Why did you not bring this to me before?" the sculptor asked at +length, turning towards her. "It is six years now." + +"Have I been able to shape my life?" returned Ninitta. "I have followed +you to Florence, to Paris; you came to America. I followed you to New +York; you were here. I have never ceased trying to reach you. It was +not easy for me to cross half the world alone and without help; with no +friends, no money; with nothing." + +"But you have been in Boston a couple of months." + +"Yes," she said quietly, looking up into his face. "But you knew it. I +waited for you to send for me." + +"I have only known it a week," was the sculptor's reply. "Do you know +what was in Hoffmeir's letter?" + +"His ring; the one you wore in Rome." + +"But do you know what he wrote?" + +"No," she answered. "How should I?" + +Her questioner looked at her a moment in silence. She put up her head +proudly with an involuntary response to the questioning which his +silence implied, and met his eyes unflinchingly. Yet he put his thought +into words. + +"It is seven years since I saw you," he said at length. + +"It is seven years," she echoed. + +"In seven years a great deal may happen," continued he, still regarding +her closely. + +"Much, much has happened," she returned, still meeting his gaze without +shrinking. + +"Are you married?" he asked, with a certain abruptness which to a +careful observer might have indicated that the question cost him an +effort. + +"No," Ninitta returned simply; "how could I be when I was betrothed to +you?" + +"But that was broken off--" + +The sentence stuck in his throat; and he wondered that he could have +begun it. He wondered, too, how he could even have doubted the faith of +the woman before him; and most of all he wondered if he had ever really +loved her. He had an irritating consciousness that something was +expected of him which he was unwilling to give; some sign of +tenderness, some caress such as befitted the reconciliation of lovers +long separated by misunderstanding and blinding jealousy. He felt as if +he were falling below the demands of the occasion, most annoying of +sensations to the masculine mind. But an important interview can with +difficulty be changed from the key in which it is begun, and even had +his feelings prompted a display of tenderness, he felt that it would +seem abrupt and forced. He waited for Ninitta to speak. + +"Yes," she said, after a moment, as he did not continue, "it was broken +off, but Signor Hoffmeir said that was because you did not understand, +and that everything would be as it had been when you got his letter." + +A sad hopelessness began to appear in her eyes; she had of old been too +accustomed to submit to her lover's will to assume the initiative now, +despite the development and strength which time had given to her +character. The sculptor did not dream how her heart throbbed beneath +her quiet demeanor, but he was too sensitive not to be touched by the +unconscious appeal of her voice and look. + +Seven years before, an enthusiastic student in Rome, he had loved or +believed he loved, the peasant girl Ninitta, whom he had found in an +excursion to Capri and induced to come to the Eternal City as a model. + +Too honorable to betray her, he had meant to make the model his wife, +and was betrothed to her with a solemnity of which he was keenly +reminded to-day by the ring which she still wore upon her finger. +Circumstances had convinced him, however, that Ninitta was deceiving +him, and that she preferred the artist Hoffmeir, his best friend. To +break off both engagement and friendship without listening to a word +of explanation, to leave Rome and Italy, were comparatively easy for a +passionate man stung to the quick by a double treachery. To forget was +more difficult, and although a thousand times had Herman assured +himself that he had extinguished the last spark of emotion concerning +this episode, the faintest breath of an old memory was still sufficient +to rekindle some seemingly dead ember. To-day, holding in his hand the +letter from his lost friend which removed all his doubts, he saw that +instead of being injured he had himself been cruel and unjust; he felt +the full anguish of having committed an irreparable fault. We may +outlive our past; its sorrows we may forget, its wrongs we may forgive, +we may even smile at its crushed hopes, ambitions and loves with +scarcely a tinge of bitterness; but that which we have been stings us +ever with the burning pain of an undying remorse. It is not what we +have done which awakens our deepest self-scorn; it is the fact that we +were this which made it possible for us to do it. To feel that he had +been capable of the cruelty of abandoning his betrothed and of wounding +his closest friend, merely from a groundless suspicion, was to Grant +Herman a pain never to be wholly outlived. + +Nor was he without a teasing pain, through a less noble trait in his +nature, from the consciousness that he had loved Ninitta. Once the +fires of love have burned out, any mortal is apt to be lost in amazed +wonderment how they were ever kindled; and that it was hard for Grant +Herman, at thirty-five, to understand how Grant Herman, at +twenty-seven, could have adored an Italian peasant model is not so +without precedent as to be wholly incomprehensible. + +Ninitta had been a good girl, his thoughts ran, was doubtless so still; +her figure was enchanting, he would have been no sculptor had he failed +to appreciate that; he had been a boy, a foolish youngster to be +dizzied by a rushing of the blood to his head; but to make her his wife +now---- + +"Ninitta," he said, suddenly, breaking off from his thoughts into +words, "I am not well to-day: come to-morrow. Are you comfortably +settled in town? Do you need money?" + +"No," she answered, rising, "I do not want money." + +She went slowly down the studio without further word, only turning back +as she passed Bently's picture for which she had posed, and which had +been brought for the meeting of the Pagans. + +"You have seen," she said, "I am able to earn. I have learned much +while I was bringing you that letter. Across the world is a long way. +No; I have no need of money." + + + + +VII. + +IN WAY OF TASTE. + Troilus and Cressida; iii.--3. + + +Grant Herman's studio, in which the Pagans met that night, was in +its way no less unique than the company there gathered. It was a +great, misshapen place, narrow, half a hundred feet long, and +disproportionately high, with undressed brick walls and cement floor. +The upper half of one of the end walls was taken up with large windows, +before which were drawn dingy curtains. Here and there about the place +were scattered modeling stands, water tanks mounted upon rude tripods, +casts, and the usual lumber of a sculptor's studio; while upon the +walls were stuck pictures, sketches, and reproductions in all sorts of +capricious groupings. + +In one corner a flight of stairs led to a gallery high up against the +wall, over the rude railing of which looked the heads of a couple of +legless statues. From this gallery the stairs continued to ascend until +a door near the roof was reached, leading to unknown regions well up in +the building behind which the studio had been built as an afterthought. +On shelves were confusedly disposed dusty bits of bronze, plaster, +coarse pottery and rare glass; things valueless and things beyond price +standing in careless fellowship. A canvas of Corot looked down upon a +grotesque, grimacing Japanese idol, a beautiful bronze reproduction of +a vase by Michael Angelo stood shoulder to shoulder with a bean-pot +full of tobacco; a crumpled cravat was thrown carelessly over the arm +of a dancing faun, while a cluster of Barye's matchless animals were +apparently making their way with great difficulty through a collection +of pipes, broken modeling tools, faded flowers and loose papers. Every +where it was evident that the studio of Herman differed from heaven in +at least its first law. + +Quite in keeping with the picturesque, richly stored room, was the +group of men walking about the place or seated near the rough table +upon which refreshments were placed. On this table were a couple of +splendid punch-bowls of antique cut glass, which, if not full now, had +unmistakable marks of having been so earlier in the evening. A coarse +dish of yellow earthen ware beside them held an ample supply of +biscuits, and was in turn flanked by a couple of plates of cheese. +Fruit, beer, and tobacco in various forms, with abundant glasses and +pipes, completed the furnishing of the board, upon which a newspaper +supplied the place of a cloth. + +Tom Bently's long, shapely limbs were disposed in a big easy-chair by +the table, his tongue being just now employed in one of his not +infrequent harangues upon art, his remarks being plentifully spiced +with profanity. + +"Whatever crazy ideas on art," Bently was saying, "aren't good for any +thing else have to be put into a book. The surest recommendation in art +circles is getting out a book or giving a rubbishy lecture. Every woman +who has painted a few bunches of flowers or daubed a little pottery, +writes a book to tell how she did it; as if it were the most +astonishing thing in the world." + +"Women are very like hens," interpolated Fenton; "they always cackle +most over the smallest egg." + +"If any one of the crew," continued Bently, "could appreciate a +fiftieth part of the suggestions in a single sketch of an old master, +she might have something to write about." + +"But then she would know enough to keep still," said Rangely. + +"Oh, a woman never knows enough to keep still," Bently retorted. "It is +damned amusing to hear the average American----" + +A chorus of protestations arose. + +"We'll have nothing about the 'Average American,' Bently!" + +"Start somebody else on his hobby," suggested Ainsworth; "that's the +only way to choke Bently off. Where's Fenton? I never knew him quiet +for so long in my life." + +Arthur had been watching his companions and smoking in silence. He +smiled brilliantly at Ainsworth's challenge. + +"I'm overwhelmed by Bently's oaths," he said. "He outdoes himself +to-night." + +"When it comes time for Tom's epitaph," observed Rangely, "I shall +suggest that it be a dash." + +"Why do you swear so?" inquired Ainsworth. "Don't you think it in +execrable taste?" + +"Taste?" laughed Bently. "Yes; it's so far above all taste as to be +a--sight higher and bigger." + +"I make a distinction," Herman put in good naturedly, "between swearing +and blasphemy; and Tom never blasphemes. His cursing is all in the +interest of the highest virtues." + +"Profanity is like smoking," added Tom. "Every thing depends upon how +you do it. The English, for instance, smoke for the brutality of the +thing; they never have any of the French _finesse,_ and their +smoking is nothing less than a crime. But as the Arabs smoke it is one +of the loftiest virtues; there's something godlike about it. + +"It is from smoking," Fenton chimed in, "that the Orientals learned how +to treat women; for a woman is like tobacco, the aroma should be +enjoyed and the ashes thrown away." + +"By George!" exclaimed one of the Pagans, moved by some rare +compunction to remember that he had a wife at home, "that's infamous, +Arthur." + +"It is my belief," observed Ainsworth deliberately, "that Fenton lies +awake nights to invent beastly things to say about women, and when he +gets something that he thinks is smart he throws it into the +conversation any where, without the slightest regard to whether it fits +or not." + +"What makes you so bitter against women?" asked Bently. + +"Yes," added Rangely, with mock deprecation. "Why do you want to +annihilate the sex? What harm have women ever done to you?" + +"Oh," retorted the artist, "it is on theoretical principles, purely. I +adore that masculine ideal which man calls woman, but only finds in his +brain. The highest on earth is reached only by the absolute elimination +of the feminine. Ah! man is at his best in war," he went on, his +attitude becoming less studied and more forcible, as he allowed his +intellectual interest to overpower his vanity; "there he is all +masculine; man without the limitations that the presence of woman +imposes upon him. There woman is ignored, and even if she has been the +cause of the war--and to be the cause of war is woman's noblest +prerogative!--she is for the time being as completely forgotten as if +she had never existed. She slips into oblivion as does the horn of grog +which gives his courage." + +Fenton was in a mood when he fancied he was talking well, a conviction +which was not always an accurate measure of the real worth of his +remarks. He delighted in presenting half truths in forcible +phraseology, relishing the taste of an epigram quite without reference +to its verity. He amused himself and his friends with talk more or less +brilliant, of which no one knew better than himself the fallacy, but +whose cleverness atoned with him for all defects. The intellectual +excitement of giving free rein to his fancy and his tongue was +dangerously pleasant to Arthur, who often more than half convinced +himself of the verity of his extravagant theories, and oftener still +involved himself in their defense by yielding to the mere whim of +phrasing them effectively. + +"You are on your high horse to-night, Fenton," cried Rangely, "you make +no more of a metaphor than a racer of a hurdle." + +"Don't stop him," Ainsworth said. "Let him run the course out now he's +on the track." + +"When man comes into his kingdom," Fenton broke out again, too fully +aroused to mind the banter, yet with a sort of double consciousness +enjoying the absurdity of the whole conversation, "when man comes into +his kingdom, when we get to the perfection of the race, there will be +no women. The ultimate man will be masculine--men, only men; gloriously +and eternally masculine!" "But how will the race perpetuate itself?" +asked Tom in as matter of fact a tone as he might have inquired the +time of day. + +"Perpetuate itself!" blazed the other. "The race will not need to +perpetuate itself. The world will be peopled with gods! When once women +are gone the race will have become immortal!" + +A shout of mingled applause and derision greeted this outburst, amid +which Fenton threw himself back in a lounging chair and lighted a fresh +cigar. He was intoxicated with himself, and few draughts are more +dangerous. + +"Take to the lecture platform, Fenton," jeered Ainsworth. "You'll make +your mark in the world yet." + +"I wonder you stopped at immortality," remarked Fred Rangely. "You +usually go on to dispose of the future state." + +"Impossible," retorted the artist, "for you never heard me say I +believed in one." + +"That's a fact," confessed the other, "but you insist so emphatically +that women have no moral sense that your philosophy certainly would +dispose of them if it allow any future state." + +"For my part," declared Herman, "I've heard Fenton talk nonsense as +long as I want to; let's look at the pictures." + +An informal exhibition had been arranged, consisting of pictures loaned +by friends, and including several by members of the club. The most +important of the latter was a gypsy which Bently had just completed, +and which exhibited that artist's defects and excellences in the +emphatic manner usual with his productions. The _motif_ was better +than the _technique_, but Bently's splendid feeling for color +somehow carried him through, and made the picture not only striking but +rich and suggestive. + +"If you could learn to draw, Tom," Fenton said, as they stood looking +at it, "you'd be the biggest man in America." + +"Is that the new model you were talking about?" asked Rangely. + +"Yes," Bently answered. "Isn't she a stunner?" + +"I thought that shoulder was something new," put in Fenton. "The girl +poses well; trust a woman with shoulders like that to know how to +display them." + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Grant Herman in sudden and rare irritation, +"can you never have done slurring at women? Didn't you have a mother? +In heaven's name let some woman escape your tongue for her sake!" + +Such an outburst from their host produced a profound sensation upon the +Pagans. The most tolerant of men, he was accustomed to listen to their +wholesale denunciations of all things with a good natured smile, +contenting himself with a calm contradiction now and then. Proverbial +for his patience and good temper, he produced the greater sensation now +when he gave vent to his anger upon a subject which not only Fenton but +every guest present usually considered fair game. + +"I'm sorry I vexed you, Herman," Fenton said, turning to him after a +moment's silence, "but however much I've abused women, you never heard +me blackguard a woman in your life." + +"You are right," the sculptor replied, catching the other's slender +hand in his stalwart grasp. "I beg your pardon. I'm out of sorts, I +suppose, or I shouldn't be quarreling like a Christian. Let's brew a +new bowl and drink to Pagan harmony." + + + + +VIII. + +THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; ii.--7. + + +After the Pagans had separated that night Fred Rangely lingered in +Herman's studio. + +The sculptor somehow found it possible to be more frank with Rangely +than with any other of his companions, and although there was a +difference of some half a dozen in the count of their years, and +perhaps more in their ages as measured by experiences, Herman's strong +but naturally stormy nature found much pleasure in the calm philosophy +of his friend. + +Scarcely were the two men alone, when Rangely turned to his host and +demanded abruptly: + +"Now, I want to know, Grant, what in the devil is the matter with you +to-night? What set you out to pitch into Fenton so?" + +Herman poured out a glass of wine and swallowed it before replying. + +"Because I am a damned idiot!" he retorted savagely. "I'm all shaken +up, Fred; and the worst of it is that I don't see any way out of the +snare I'm in." + +"It isn't real trouble, I hope." + +"Isn't it! By Jove!" cried the sculptor, "the more honest a man is in +this world the worse off he is. If I hadn't had a conscience when I was +a young fellow, I should be all right now. Who is it--Fenton?--that is +always saying that he asks forgiveness for his virtues and thanks the +gods for every vice he can cultivate?" + +"Well," Rangely remarked, filling a pipe, and curiously surveying his +companion, who was raging up and down the studio, "you don't seem to be +in an especially cheerful and enlivening frame of mind; that's a fact. +If a fellow can be of any help, call on; if not, at least try to take +it a little more gently for the sake of your friends." + +"Do any thing?" retorted the other. "No; there's nothing to be done. +I'm a fool." + +"Even that disease has been remedied before now," Rangely said coolly; +"though usually experience and time are necessary to the cure." + +"I'll tell you the whole story," Herman exclaimed, flinging himself +into a chair. "It is all simple enough. It is always simple enough to +tangle things up so that Lucifer himself cannot unsnarl them. When I +was in Rome I was in love--crazily, gushingly in love, you understand, +like a big schoolboy--with a girl I found in Capri. She was a good +little thing, with a figure like Helen's; that's what did the business +for me. I coaxed her to Rome to be my model, and then that infernal +conscience of mine made me ask her to marry me. I could have done any +thing I liked with her; I knew that; she had nobody to look after her +but a half sister who paid about as much attention to her as if she had +been a grasshopper. But the infernal New England Puritanism in my blood +wouldn't let me hurt her." + +"And somebody else wasn't so scrupulous?" asked the listener as his +friend paused in his story. + +"You think so?" returned Herman eagerly. "Then I wasn't so unutterably +a scoundrel for thinking so, too, was I? I did doubt her; I had reason +to. She posed for a friend of mine, a painter; you know, of course--Hang +it! What's the use of going into all the details. I was poor as a +church mouse or she shouldn't have done it at all, even for him. The +gist of the story is that I was jealous and flew out at both of them, +and left Rome in a rage!" + +The two men sat in silence for some moments. Rangely puffed vigorously +at his pipe, while his companion stared savagely into the shadows in +the further end of the studio. Neither looked at the other; the hearer +appreciated too well the shame-facedness by which these unusual +confidences must be accompanied. From some distant steeple a clock was +faintly heard striking two. + +"And to-day," Herman at length began again in an altered voice, "to-day +she came here. She has followed me all these years, going through +heaven knows what experiences and hardships, to bring me the proof that +I was a madman blinded by groundless jealousy, and that instead of +being wronged I cursedly abused both her and poor dead old Hoffmeir." + +Again there came an interval of silence. A lamp flickered and went out +with a muffled sound. The thoughts of both men were of that formless +character scarcely to be distinguished from emotions; on the one hand +sad and remorseful, on the other sympathetic and pitiful. + +"Well?" Rangely ventured after a time. + +"But what shall I do?" demanded Herman. "I cannot marry her." + +"No, of course not. She cannot expect it after banging about the +world." + +"Oh, it isn't that," the other said hastily. "She is as good and as +pure as when I left her; at least I believe so. And she does expect +it." + +"She does expect it!" echoed his friend. "Ah!" + +The reception of a confidence is a most delicate ordeal through which +few people come unscathed. Rare individuals are born with the ready +sympathies, quick apprehension, and exquisite tact needful; but the +vast majority are sure to wound their friends if the latter ever +venture to approach with their armor of reticence laid wholly aside. + +Although perhaps not the ideal confidant, Rangely was sympathetic and +possessed of at least sufficient discretion to avoid comment until he +knew the whole situation and was sure that his opinion was desired. He +was still unable fully to understand his friend's agitation, the task +of disposing of an old sweetheart in so inferior a position not +appearing to his easy-going nature a matter sufficiently difficult to +warrant so deep disquiet. + +Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he +was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most +secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a +savage sense of doing penance by the self-inflicted torture. + +"Yes," he repeated, "she expects it. Why shouldn't she, poor thing? She +has not changed, and she does not understand that I may have altered." + +"And you have?" + +Grant Herman looked up and down the great studio, now growing dusky +from the burning out of candles here and there. An antique lamp which +was lighted only on special occasions stood where the breeze came to it +from the high window, and the flame, wind-swept, smoked and flared. +Through the silence the listener's ear could detect a faint sound of +the tide washing against the piles of the wharf outside. + +The sculptor started up suddenly and stood firmly, throwing back his +splendid head and shoulders, and looking straight into the eyes of his +friend. + +"Yes," he said in a clear, low voice. "I have changed. I---There is +some one else." + +"Life," remarked Rangely, with seeming irrelevancy, "life is a +fallacy." + +"I'd like to be honorable," Herman continued, "but how can I? It is +impossible to be honest to both her and myself. If I hadn't had any +scruples, then---Bah! What a beast I am! Poor Ninitta." + +Still Rangely smoked in silence, and the sculptor went on again. + +"It has always been my creed that when a man has allowed a woman to +love him--much more, made her love him, as I did--he is a black-hearted +knave to let a change in himself wreck her happiness. Now I am put to +the test." + +"And the other one?" asked Rangely. "Does she know that you care for +her?" + +"I have never said so to her. Heaven only knows how much she feels by +intuition. A man always fancies that the woman he loves can tell." + +"That may depend something on how often you see her." "I see her +nearly every day. She is my pupil." + +"Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Yes," Herman said, a little defiantly, as if now the secret was told +he challenged the right of another man to share it. + +"Is she a widow?" + +"Yes," the other answered, with no perceptible pause, and yet between +the question and his reply had come to him the swift remembrance that +he really knew nothing of his pupil's life or history, and had simply +taken it for granted that her husband was not living. "Arthur Fenton +brought her here," he added, rather thinking aloud than answering any +point of Rangely's query. "He was an old friend of her husband." + +"But what will you do with the other?" + +Instead of replying Herman got up from the seat into which he had flung +himself, and went about the studio putting out the lights. + +"Go home," he said with a whimsical smile. "I'm sure I don't know what +we are talking about at this time of the morning. As for what I shall +do--Well, time will show; I am as ignorant as yourself on the subject." + + + + +IX. + +VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE. + Comedy of Errors; ii.--i. + + +It suited Fenton's whim next morning to dine with Mrs. Greyson. He had +established the habit of dropping in when he chose, always sure of a +welcome, and always sure, too, of a listener to the tirades in which he +was fond of indulging. If Helen did not always accord him agreement, +she at least gave attention, and he cared rather to talk than to +convince. + +His aesthetic taste, moreover, was gratified by the pretty breakfast +table; and he was not without a subtle sense of pleasure in the beauty +and harmonious dress of his hostess, who possessed the rare charm of +contriving to be always well attired. This morning she wore a gown of +russet cashmere with here and there knots of dull gold ribbon, which +tint formed a pleasing link between the stuff and the color of her +clear skin. + +"It is good of you to come," she said, as she poured his coffee. "There +are so few days left before you will have married a wife and cannot +come. I shall miss you very much." + +"Why do you persist in talking in that way?" + +Fenton returned. "I'm not going out of the country or out of the world. +You could not take a more absolute farewell if I were about to be +cremated." + +"You do not know," replied she, smiling. "However, I am glad you are to +be married. It will do you good. You need a wife, if you do dread +matrimony so much." + +"It is abominable," he observed deliberately, "to talk as I do. Of +course I do not mind what you choose to think of me; or rather I am +sure you will not misunderstand." + +"I do not," Mrs. Greyson interpolated significantly. + + "But it seems a reflection upon Miss Caldwell," he continued, +answering her interruption only by a grimace, "for me to discourse of +marriage just as I do. It isn't because I'm not fond of her. It is my +protest against the absurd and false way in which society regards +marriage; in a word against marriage itself." + +Mrs. Greyson understood Arthur Fenton as well as any woman can +understand a man who is her friend. Her friendship softened the +harshness of her judgments, but she could not be blind to his vanity, +his constant efforts at self-deception, and so far as she was in +possession of the facts, she reasoned correctly in regard to his +approaching marriage. + +"No," she said calmly, "it isn't even that. You talk partly for the +sake of saying things that sound effective, and partly because you are +morbid from over introspection. If you were vicious, I should say you +did it as an atonement. Many people would not understand you, but as +I do, it is harmless for you to talk to me." + +"Introspective? Of course. Can any body help being that in this age? +And as for being morbid--it all depends upon definitions. I try to be +honest with myself." + +"The subtlest form of hypocrisy," she answered, "often consists in what +we call being honest with ourselves. I gave that up long ago. You are +not honest with yourself about this marriage. If you don't wish to +marry Miss Caldwell, who forces you to do so?" + +"Forces me to? Good heavens! I do wish to marry her. Of course I don't +ever expect to be perfectly happy. In this inexplicable world natures +that demand that every thing shall be explained must necessarily remain +unsatisfied. Still, I'd take a little more coffee as a palliation of my +lot, if you please." + +"It is well you are to marry," observed Helen, refilling his cup. +"You've concentrated your attention upon yourself too long." + +"But I am afraid of poverty. If I find some old Boston duffer with a +lot of money, and can fool him into admiring the frame of one of my +pictures, he may buy it, and I can pay the butcher, the baker and the +gas man for a week. If I can't, I must daub the canvas a little higher +and try the same game in New York, and--" + +"Rubbish!" she interrupted. "The difficulty is, you are too +self-indulgent. You are too much afraid of the little discomforts." + +"No," he answered; "men--at least sensitive men--do not suffer so much +from the discomforts of poverty as from its indignities." + +"If--" began Helen; but without finishing, she rose from the table, +went to the window and stood looking out. + +Fenton watched her idly, knowing perfectly that the woman before him +was capable of sacrificing for him all the little income which was +her's; and he wondered, as men will, how deep her feeling for him had +really become, and whether it had ever passed that mysterious and +undefinable line which separates love from friendship. + +Helen had often endeavored to assist the artist out of some financial +difficulty by buying one of his unsellable pictures, a pretext which he +had the grace to put aside by refusing to sell, sometimes sending her +as a gift precisely the work for which he could most easily find a +purchaser. There was continually a silent struggle, more or less +consciously carried on between the two, although seldom appearing upon +the surface. Too much Fenton's friend not to be pained by his +weaknesses, Helen was stung to the quick by a certain insincerity +which she often detected alike beneath his raillery and his cynicism. +Too noble to yield to any belief in a friend's unworthiness without +resistance, she suffered anew whenever his words seemed to ring false, +and now there were tears in her eyes as she looked out into the sunny +street. She pressed them firmly back, however, and turned a calm face +towards her guest, who sat playing with his spoon and watching her with +a half troubled, half amused expression. + +"I've composed my epitaph," he said irrelevantly. "Will you please +compose my monument." + +"Oh, willingly. But it will be necessary to know the epitaph, so that +the monument may express the same sentiment." + +"I shall have no name," Arthur returned. "Only-- + _L'homme est mort. Soit_. +How does that strike you?" + +"Ah," she cried impulsively, "how does any thing strike me? You play at +being wretched as sentimental school girls do, when in their case it is +slate pencils and pickled limes and in your case it is vanity. If you +were half as miserable as you pretend, you'd have blown your brains out +long ago, or deemed yourself the veriest craven alive. I've no patience +with such attitudinizing." + +"You are partly right," he admitted, "but do any of us find the savor +of life so sweet as to make it worth while?" + +Something in his voice, a ring of what might be pity in his tone, +humiliated Helen. She suspected that he thought her outburst arose from +a too great fondness for himself, for grief at parting and at giving +him up to another. She struggled to regain her calmness; she felt the +impossibility of contradicting the belief which she was sure existed in +his mind; she was conscious that to say, "I do not love you," would +appear to him proof incontrovertible that the reverse was true. Her +throat contracted painfully and she cast down her eyes lest the tears +in them should be seen. + +"The Caffres," Fenton continued, after an instant's pause, "are said to +be so fond of sugar that they will eat a handful of sand rather than +lose a grain or two that has fallen to the ground; it seems to me life +is the sand and joy in the proportion of the sugar. I'm not willing to +take the sand, and I protest against it. There is no morality in it." + +"There is no morality in any thing but death," Helen returned drearily. + +"Death!" echoed Fenton. "Do you call that moral! Death that crushes the +emotions, that kills the passions, that pollutes the flesh; the monster +which debauches all that is sacred in the physical, that degrades to +the level of the lowest all that is high in the intellectual--is this +your idea of the moral? The coarsest rioting of sensual life is sacred +beside it. Death moral? _Mon Dieu_, Helen, how you do abuse +terms!" + +Fenton was continually treading upon the dangerous edge between pathos +and bathos, between impressiveness and absurdity. Had he not possessed +extremely sensitive perceptions which enabled him to judge swiftly and +exactly of the effect of his declamations, and the keenest sense of the +ludicrous that helped him to turn into ridicule whatever could not be +made to pass for earnest, much of his extravagant talk would have +excited amusement and, not impossibly, contempt, instead of producing +the half serious effect he desired. He could impart a vast air of +sincerity to his speech, moreover, and could even for the moment be +sincere. In the present case his earnest and real feeling saved this +outburst from the somewhat theatrical air which the words might easily +have had if spoken at all artificially. + +"The history of mankind," went on the artist, in a sort of two-fold +consciousness, deeply feeling on the one hand what he was saying, but +on the other endeavoring to direct the conversation to generalities in +which would be lost the dangerous personal remarks which threatened, +"the whole history of mankind is a protest against death as an insult, +an outrage. All religions are only mankind's defiance of death more or +less largely phrased." + +"No," Helen said. "Not our defiance; our confession of a craven fear. I +am afraid of death. I don't dare take my life." + +"We are talking," responded her companion, in his turn leaving the +table and approaching the window, "like a couple of unmitigated ghouls. +I acknowledge your right to put aside your life if it bores you; man +has at least that one inalienable right. But why should you? Art is +left still." + +"Art," she repeated with profound sadness; "yes, but a woman is never +content with abstractions. She demands something more definite. And, by +the way, Will came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes! What did he want?" + +"He said he only came to see how I was. I think he recognizes that now +he has come from Europe our secret is sure to leak out soon, and is +looking the ground over to see how it is best to behave. He was very +entertaining; I never enjoyed him more thoroughly." + +"He's a model husband," Fenton observed thoughtfully. "As well as you +like each other, I'll be hanged if I can see why you don't live like +other people." + +"It is precisely because we don't live like other people," was the +reply, "that we do like each other so well. We are the best of friends; +we were the worst possible husband and wife. I hated him officially, +and---There! Why must you bring all that up again? Let the dead past +bury its dead." + +"But the past won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a +persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly +disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll +caricature might be made on that line? Time as a decrepit old sexton, +you know." + +"So few people can joke on those subjects that it would appeal to a +very limited audience, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, that's true of every thing that is good for any thing." + +"Unfortunately the converse is not true, for every thing appealing to a +small audience is by no means good." + +"Not even marriage?" + +"Still harping on matrimony," said Helen, laughing. "What will you do +after the knot is really tied? You speak in the mournful tone of one +who reads _'Lasciate ogni speranza'_ upon his wedding horseshoe." + +"Oh, not quite," he laughed back, "for after marriage a man can always +amuse himself, you know, by looking at any woman he may meet and +fancying how much worse off he might be if he had married her instead +of his wife." + +"Well," Helen remarked, turning, "your conversation is amusing and +doubtless deeply instructive, but I must go to the studio. My +bas-relief will hardly complete itself, I suppose, and I've a splendid +offer for it, to decorate a house in Milton. It is to be paneled into +the side of an oak stairway at the back of the main hall. Isn't that +fine?" + + + + +X. + +O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT. + Hamlet; i.--5. + + +Anomalies are doubtless as truly the product of law as results whose +logic is evident, and the strange relations between Mrs. Greyson and +her husband were therefore to be considered the outcome of fixed causes +from which no other result was possible. + +Married when scarcely more than a girl, shy, undeveloped and ignorant +of the world, Helen came from a secluded life, which had been pretty +equally divided between the library of her dead father and the woods +surrounding the country village where she lived. She had never even +fancied that she loved Dr. Ashton; but she had married him as she would +have obeyed any other command of the stern aunt who had presided +severely over her orphaned childhood. He, half-a-dozen years her +senior, had been enamored of her wonderful beauty and modest +intellectuality; and, being accustomed always to gratify the impulse of +the moment, he had married her with a precipitancy as characteristic as +it was reckless. It was owing to a certain mutual scorn of +conventionalities that Helen and her husband at length decided to +separate. Without the aid of the law and without scandal, they settled +back into single liberty, the wife taking again her father's name. They +had spent their married life abroad, where Dr. Ashton had remained +until a short time previous to the opening of our story, and as neither +husband nor wife had been in their single life known in Boston, and as +Helen was chary of new acquaintances, their relations had thus far +remained undiscovered. Helen, at least, recognized how improbable it +was that this secrecy would long remain inviolate, but she went quietly +on her way, letting events take their own course. + +Arthur Fenton was an old friend of her husband whom Helen had met in +Europe, but had known intimately only during her Boston life. She had +found him sympathetic, responsive and entertaining, and as any lonely +woman clings to the companionship of an appreciative man, she had clung +to the friendship and comradeship of the artist. + +Going across the Common towards the studio on this sunny morning, when +the air was brisk and bracing, the naked trees clearly and delicately +defined against the sky, Helen's thoughts went back to her past; to her +shy, secluded girlhood, to the years of her married life, and to the +way in which she had been living since she and her husband parted. She +reflected with a smile, half pity, half contempt, of the proud, +reticent girl who had pored over books and drawings in the musty, +deserted library at home, almost wondering if she were the same being. +She looked from the Joy Street mall across the hollow which holds the +Frog Pond, the most charming view on the Common, yet not even the +golden sparkle of the water or the beautiful line of the slope beyond +could chase from her mind the picture of the high, dim old room, lined +to the ceiling with book-shelves, dingy and dusty from neglect. She +seemed to hear still the weird tapping of the beech-tree boughs against +the tall narrow windows, and still to smell odor of old leather; she +remembered vividly the dull dizziness that came from stooping too long +over some volume too heavy to hold, above which, half lying upon the +carpetless floor, she had bent with drooping golden curls. She +remembered, too, the remoteness of the real world from the ideal sphere +in which her fancy placed her; how unimportant and unsubstantial to her +had appeared the events of daily life as compared with the incidents of +the world the old books in the musty library opened to her. The life of +these magic tomes was the real, and that humdrum state through which +her visible pathway lay was the dream. To the imaginative girl, half +child, half poet, her marriage had prospectively seemed merely an +accident of the trivial outside existence which surrounded without +penetrating her true being; and the sharpness of the rude awakening +from this childish misconception still pierced the woman's proud soul. + +No woman recalls her childhood without regret, and despite the +philosophy she had cultivated, Helen felt a deep sadness as the old +days, somber and dull though they had been, rose before her. She +hurried her step a little as if to escape her past, when a pleasant +voice at her elbow said: + +"Good morning, Helen. Upon what wickedness are you bent now. You go too +fast to be on a good errand." + +"Good morning, Will," she answered, without turning, for the voice +brought the speaker before her mental vision as plainly as her eyes +could have done. "I was just thinking of you, and of the days when you +found me at home." + +"Yes," responded Dr. Ashton, "what were you thinking of them?" + +"Nothing very pleasant," she answered with a sigh. "What a gorgeous day +it is. Arthur has been breakfasting with me." + +"Arthur is going to be married," remarked her companion good humoredly. +"I've just been out to buy him a wedding present." + +"What is it?" + +"Oh, something he chose himself. It is not safe to tell you, though." + +"Haven't I proved my discretion?" Helen said lightly. "I thought that +by this time you'd be willing to trust me with your most deadly +secrets." + +"This is a deadly secret, indeed," he returned, taking from his pocket +a small morocco case. + +"Oh, jewelry," Helen said, with an accent of disappointment. "I should +never have suspected you of such commonplaceness, Will." + +"Not jewelry; a jewel," retorted Dr. Ashton, opening the case and +displaying a tiny vial. + +"Will!" Helen exclaimed, stopping suddenly and catching her husband by +the arm, "you won't give him that?" + +"Why not? I promised him long ago that I'd get it for him, and he +particularly asked for it as a wedding gift." + +"Oh, Will; don't do it! He'll use it sometime when he's blue; he'll----" + +"Nonsense," responded the physician, restoring the case to his pocket. +"I've diagnosed his case perfectly. He isn't very robust, he's +infernally sensitive, and he's no end morbid. He fancies he may want to +kill himself, and I dare say he will have leanings that way. Most of us +do. He has wanted to a good many times before now, and he is likely to +again, but he won't do it. He's too soft-hearted. He might get up steam +enough as far as courage goes, but he'd never forget other people and +their opinion. He couldn't bear to hurt others, and still less could he +bear the idea of their blaming him. He is precisely the man who cannot +take his own life." + +"But what puts it into his head just now? Why should he marry if he +dreads it so?" + +"It is all of a piece with his morbidness. He is really in love with +Miss Caldwell, I think, but he has brooded over the matter as he broods +over every thing, and seeing the uncertain nature of matrimony, he like +a wise man provides for contingencies. There may be something behind +that I don't know of, but I think not. He'll feel easier if he has +this, and I am honestly doing him a favor, if it isn't in the way he +thinks." + +"I do not know," persisted Helen, "but I do wish you wouldn't do it. +How would his bride feel if she knew?" + +"I don't know her," Dr. Ashton returned coolly, "so of course I can't +tell how sensible she is; but in any case I can trust Arthur's +discretion." + +"She's orthodox," said Helen, "or, no, I think she is not so bad as +that; but she would regard the idea of suicide as unspeakably wicked. +At least I think so; I never saw her but once. Oh, I do hate to have +Arthur marry her. It's dreadful!" + +"Of course; it's dreadful to think of any man's marrying, for that +matter," he returned with a smile, "but he is a man who was sure to do +it sooner or later." + +"He's a man of so much principle," Helen mused, half aloud. + +"Principle," sneered her companion laughingly, "principle is only +formulated policy." + +"I am dreadfully tired of epigrams," sighed Helen as they walked down +West street. "Whether Arthur learned the habit of you or you of him I +don't know; but the pair of you are enough to corrupt all Boston. I do +wish you'd give me that case. I'm sure I need it far more than Arthur +does. He's going to be married, his pictures are praised and are +beginning to sell, he has life before him and every thing to live for, +while I have nothing." + +"Life is before you, too," answered her husband gravely, putting his +hand upon her arm to prevent her flying under the wheels of a carriage +which in her absorption she had not noticed. "Look here, Helen; it +wouldn't be any better if Arthur wanted to marry you. You are too +melancholy alone without having him to push you deeper into the slough +of despond." + +"You are mistaken, Will," was the quiet response. "I am fond of Arthur, +very fond, indeed; but not in that way. I am a fool to grieve about his +marriage; I own that, though after all I've lived through I ought to be +too hardened to care. But you must acknowledge that it isn't very +pleasant for me to see him deliberately going away to marry a woman who +would consider me a Bohemian, and very likely anything but respectable, +because you and I choose to be comfortable apart instead of miserable +together. If I were not so utterly alone in the world, losing a friend +would not be so great a matter, perhaps; but he is all I have now, +Will." + +"It is hard, old lady; that's a fact. I wish I could straighten things +out for you, but I don't see how I can." + +"No," Helen said drearily, "nobody can." + + + + +XI. + +WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED. + Comedy of Errors; i.--I. + + +Upon entering the small studio where her bas-relief stood, Helen found +Herman there before her. He had removed the wet cloths from the clay +and was examining the work with close attention. + +"You need a model for this figure," he said, indicating the month of +May. "You must take that turn of the shoulder from nothing but life." + +Helen came and stood beside him, looking at the work. The instinct of +the artist for the moment superseded all other feelings in her mind, +and she forgot alike her own troubles and the ill-omened gift with +which her husband purposed remembering the nuptials of her friend. + +The figure of May of which Herman spoke was that of a beautiful young +girl casting backward a wistful look at the fallen flowers which she +had dropped but might not stay to gather up again. The splendid +movement of the youthful figure, thrown forward in her running, but +with one shoulder turned toward the spectator, so that the upper +portion of the beautiful bosom was seen, formed one of the finest +details of the composition. + +"Yes," the sculptor said again, "you must have a model for that, and I +have one coming this morning. To be honest, I came up here hoping you'd +need her. I believe she is a good girl, and I do not like the idea of +her being about among the studios." + +He went on to speak of the figure, adding suggestions of treatment, +feeling and posing; and as he talked he was conscious of needlessly +prolonging the conversation for the mere pleasure of being near this +woman, and of secretly cherishing some vague feeling that not only +would Ninitta be safe under Mrs. Greyson's guardianship, but that some +solution of the complexities in which he found himself involved would +result from bringing together the two women so closely connected with +his life. + +He went away into his own studio at length, but Helen had scarcely got +fairly to work before he reappeared with Ninitta. + +Ninitta was much the same in outward appearance as upon the previous +day, but between this morning's mental state and that of yesterday +there was a great gulf. The Italian's character was a strange if not +wholly unique mixture of simplicity and worldly wisdom. All her +experiences, her life as a model in various parts of the world, her +hardships and successes, while teaching her only too sharply the +follies and vices of mankind, had never for an instant shaken her faith +in Grant Herman. He was her god. It is even doubtful if any thing he +could have done would have destroyed her belief in his integrity and +nobility of soul. When he left her, she acquiesced, it is true, but +with a wild passion of anguish. She knew he misjudged, but she chose to +phrase it to herself that he was deceived; his rashness and +hot-headedness were to her only so many fresh evidences of his +greatness of character. She was not the first woman who has vaguely felt +that unreasoning jealousy and passion are admirable or even +essential attributes of virility, and who has worshiped a man as much +for his faults as for his virtues. + +To the dream of meeting Herman with the proofs that he had been +deceived, Ninitta had clung unyieldingly through the dreary years since +the death of Hoffmeir, who had been kind to her for the sake of his +shattered friendship with Herman, and for the sake, too, of his own +hopeless love for herself. It was from mingled shyness and pride that +Ninitta had waited for a summons from the sculptor after she had +reached Boston; but when she had at last gone to his studio it was with +keen emotion. She had not considered that both herself and her old-time +lover had changed in the seven years of separation. She had not +reflected that believing her false he could not but have endeavored to +forget her. She could not know that contact with the world, if it had +not made him ashamed of his youthful enthusiasm, had at least showed +him how the marriage he had contemplated would have appeared in the +eyes of worldly wisdom, and had so educated him that reason was less +helpless before passion than of old. + +But to-day Ninitta was a different woman, changed by the agony of a +night into which had been compressed the bitterness of years. She had +been too sharply wounded at being greeted by a hand-shake in place of +the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead +of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations +between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the +alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a +knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far +keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. +Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her sex stood her +in good stead. She was convinced that some other woman had won the +sculptor's love from her. When she came into Helen's studio this +morning she watched sharply for some token which should show her the +relations in which the two artists stood to each other; but she could +detect nothing significant. Mrs. Greyson was intent only upon her work, +and whatever the sculptor may have felt at the meeting of Helen and +Ninitta, he made no outward sign. + +The model showed a quickness of comprehension in taking the pose +required, and the shoulder she bared was of so exquisite mold that +Helen's keenest artistic powers were aroused. Ninitta understood the +art of posing as a painter knows the use of brush and colors; she had +for it an inborn capacity impossible except in the child of an art +land. Moved by the inspiration of that most beautiful bust, Mrs. +Greyson worked enthusiastically, scarcely noticing when her master left +the room, an indication of indifference which the model did not fail to +note. + + + + +XII. + +WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur +Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and +it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The +sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit +her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend +with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to +care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a +small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she +declined being hampered by a chaperon. + +"My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to +come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be +an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I +suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more." + +On the present occasion Arthur Fenton asked leave to light his cigar, +and although Herman felt this something of a profanation, it was not +long before he and Rangely added their wreaths to the smoke garlands +which hung upon the air, and had not the hostess become somewhat +accustomed to tobacco in foreign _ateliers,_ it is to be doubted +if she could have complacently endured the fumes which arose. + +All subjects of heaven and earth came drifting into the talk, and at +length something evoked from Rangely his opinion of Emerson. + +"Emerson was great," he said, "Emerson often recalled Goethe in +Goethe's cooler and more intellectual moods; but Emerson lacked the +loftiness of vice; he was eternally narrow." + +"'The loftiness of vice,'" echoed the hostess. "What does that mean? It +sounds vicious enough." + +"Emerson," Rangely returned, "knew only half of life. He never had any +conception of the passionate longing for vice _per se;_ the +thrill, the glow which comes to some men at the splendid caress of sin +in her most horrible shape. Do you see what I mean? He couldn't imagine +the ecstasy that may lie in mere foulness." + +"No," replied Helen, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. Though I am sure I +ought to be shocked. Do you mean that he should have been vicious?" + +"Certainly not; but it was his limitation not to be tempted; not to be +able to project himself into a personality which riots in wickedness +far more intensely than a saint follows righteousness." + +"If you mean that he could not have been wicked if he tried, that, I +own, was in a sense a limitation." + +"Yes; and a fatal one. No man can be wholly great who understands only +one half of human impulses." + +"But what do you mean by wickedness?" demanded Herman, a little +combatively. + +"Oh," laughed Rangely, "I'm not to be entrapped into giving +metaphysical and theological definitions. I mean what we are expected +to call wickedness, conventionally speaking. I've an old cad of a +parson in my new play and I am trying to decide if it will do to have +him advocate a grand scheme for reforming the world by reversing +definitions and calling those things men choose to do virtues, and +dubbing whatever man detests, vices." + +"That is rather more clever than orthodox," Helen laughed. "How is your +play getting on, Mr. Rangely?" + +"Oh, fairish, thank you. The trouble is that the drama went out of +fashion long ago. First they replaced it by dresses and scenery, but +now every thing has given way to souvenir programmes; so I've got to +write up to a souvenir or I sha'n't make any thing out of the play." + +"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations." + +"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three +successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to +proper art levels." + +Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and +regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet, +scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's +thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his +favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler +than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated +pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with +little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings. + +"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom +he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more +melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he +has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson +watches him." + +Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen +observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent. +She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more +intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully, +although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what +was passing in the mind of her silent friend. + +"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He +is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an +unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like +him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently +selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that +she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the +other side; I am sure I hope so." + +She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes +met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine +fibers to knit people together. + +The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had +expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition. + +"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is +bow-legged!" + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe +from you for the whole evening." + +"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has +probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall +have something wild directly." + +"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising, +"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air +with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades +smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on +principle." + +He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to +lead her to the instrument. + +"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her +guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas +lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like +to be looked at too keenly when I sing." + +The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft +chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs. +Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come, +and he never forgot the thrill of that experience. + +An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the +singer. + +Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she +sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The +words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_ + + +I strew these opiate flowers +On thy restless pillow,-- +They were plucked from Orient bowers, +By the Indian billow. +Be thy sleep +Calm and deep, +Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep. + +Away, unlovely dreams! +Away, false shapes of sleep! + +Be his, as Heaven seems, +Clear and bright and deep! +Soft as love and calm as death, +Sweet as summer night without a breath. + +Sleep! sleep! My song is laden +With the soul of slumber; +It was sung by a Samian maiden +Whose lover was of the number +Who now keep +That calm sleep +Whence none may wake; where none shall weep. + +I touch thy temples pale! +I breathe my soul on thee! +And could my prayers avail, +All my joy should be +Dead, and I would live to weep, +So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep! + + +It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The +strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful, +sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating, +passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was +a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct +appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each +as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a +confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him +honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It +was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which +made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before +hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his +being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been +moved with wonder and longing. + +Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of +the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho +singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved, +and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her +presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music +could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for +the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a +sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his +friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a +right to see. + + + + +XIII. + +THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART. + Macbeth; iv.--3. + + +A hush followed the conclusion of Mrs. Greyson's song. + +No one wished to speak what all felt, and when the silence was broken, +it was with talk of the poet rather than of the singer. To the singing +they came only by slow degrees, and over it, when at length their +admiration found speech, they passed lightly. + +One thing which seemed to be effected by the music was the awakening of +Fenton from his gloomy reverie. He began to talk in his most +extravagant and whimsical style, answering every question instantly, if +with no especial care concerning the relevancy of his replies. + +"What nonsense it is," he exclaimed, "to talk of any man's originating +any thing. Why, when even Adam couldn't be made without material, what +are we, his descendants, that we should hope to create? The authors of +this old wisdom that we revamp to-day copied somebody further back, and +those in turn put down what the masses felt; collected the foam which +gathered on the yeasty waves of their age. Every truth comes to the +people first if they could only recognize it when it comes. It is +evolved by the friction of the masses, just as a fire is set by the +rubbing together of tree-boughs in primeval forests, and the dusky +redman incontinently roasted in his uncontaminated innocence. The +longer I live the less faith I have that a man evolves any thing from +his inner consciousness. Fancies are only the lies of the mendacious +brain, which perceives one thing and declares to us another." + +"Go slow, Fenton," interrupted Herman, "you know our poor wits are apt +to be dazzled by too much brilliancy." + +"The age," Fenton rattled on, "blooms once into a great man as an aloe +into a crown of bloom." + +"Right in there," broke in Rangely, who longed for a share in the +conversation, "just consider how necessary it is that every art +producer shall be in sympathy with the human life about him. That he +should take the best wherever it is to be found. There's a miserable +sentiment about shutting one's self up in some dark corner, and +producing some tremendous thing. Don't you know how many New York and +Boston artists have gone to Europe and hermetically sealed themselves +up somewhere to ferment into greatness like a jug of cider turning into +vinegar in a farmer's cellar?" + +"That's what made Hunt such a big fellow," Herman interposed; "because +he took the good wherever it offered." + +"But that depends upon whether a man goes direct to Nature for +inspiration," declared Fenton, "or sets himself to get a living by +filching the good things his neighbors have won from her." + +"Hunt did go to nature; that is just where he was great." + +"I think," said Fred, laughingly, "that you will appreciate the mood in +which I once wrote a preface. I planned a great metaphysical and +philosophical work--I was a good deal younger than I am now--and the +preface was to be, 'As to the originality of these ideas, I have +nothing more to say than that I do not remember that they have ever +been printed with my name on the title-page.' Of course, after that +declaration, I felt at liberty to take any thing I wanted from any +where; but, unluckily, my book never got beyond the preface." + +"I'm glad you had the sense to stop there," declared Arthur. "I forgive +the preface, but I could never have forgiven the book." + +Helen rose from her seat at the piano and turned up the gas a little. +The effect for which the light had been lowered was secured, and it was +better, she recognized, to give to her singing a certain isolation, +which must be done before the conversation became so general that the +change from gloom to light would not be noticed. + +She wore that evening a gray silk with black lace, a slight turning +away showing the whiteness of her beautiful throat. Her jewels were +cats'-eyes. + +"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the +Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, +watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker. + +"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess +of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the +sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is +deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being +the true author of _'Sartor Resartus.'_" + +"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I +do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to +pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old +humbug! He was the sham _par excellence_ of the nineteenth +century, this century of shams." + +"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated +Herman, "even in shams." + +"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous +egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is +something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a +relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass +of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real +sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you +recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting +up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will +often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one? +that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the +letter?" + +"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly. +"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere." + +"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess +of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to +Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth +agreeably and effectively told. _Vive la faussete!_" + +"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own +light," Herman observed, a little grimly. + +He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter, +apparently, did not feel the thrust. + +"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine +Pagan." + +"You are wrong in your idea," was Fenton's swift reply. "A true Pagan +must have a belief in some god to take from his shoulders the burden of +personal responsibility, or he cannot be joyous as a Pagan should. +However, to-night I make myself believe that I believe something, so it +comes to much the same thing." + +Helen turned and looked at him, attracted by some subtle quality in his +voice. + +He was sitting sidewise in his chair, holding an ivory paper-knife in +his slender fingers. His cheeks burned, his eyes were bright, his lips +red. He had shaken off the depression which oppressed him earlier in +the evening. An air of joyous, quivering excitement pervaded him. He +threw up his head with a characteristic gesture, and looked about him +like one who has conquered in some desperate conflict. + +"Come," the hostess said, wondering in what inward struggle he had come +off victor; "you promised to assist me with the coffee. I make no boast +of my house or my hospitality, gentlemen," she added, with a charming +glance around, "but I warn you in advance that not to admire my coffee +is to lose my friendship forever." + +In answer to her ring, a servant brought in a small mortar and a pretty +little bowl of whole coffee, delicately browned, and scarcely cold from +its roasting. Arthur, who seemed acquainted with Mrs. Greyson's methods +of procedure, began to pound the berries, roasted to perfect crispness, +in the ebony mortar, reducing them to an almost impalpable powder, +which diffused upon the air the entrancing odor dear to the nostrils of +all artists. + +The servant meantime had provided tiny cups, a little copper ibrik and +an alcohol lamp over which simmered a vessel of boiling water. + +"Coffee should be prepared only over coals of perfumed wood," Helen +remarked as she measured into the ibrik the small spoonful of coffee +dust designed for a single cup. "But alcohol is the next best thing, it +burns with such a supernatural flame." + +She put into the ibrik a measure of boiling water, rested it an instant +over the flame to restore the heat lost in the cooler copper, and then +poured the beverage into the egg-shell cup destined for it. + +"To my master first," she said, presenting the steaming cup to Herman, +who received it much as one might a gift from the skies. "I learned my +coffee making," she continued, "from an old Arab at Cairo, who used to +say that it was one of the only two things in life worth doing, the +other being the duties of religion; and it therefore should be +perfectly done." + +"It is simply divine," the sculptor said. "I have never really tasted +coffee before. Only if it is made like this your Arab might have said +there was but one thing in life, for this becomes a religious duty." +One by one with equal care were prepared cups for the others, who were +neither slow nor perfunctory in their endorsement of the sculptor's +praise. + + + + +XIV. + +THIS IS NOT A BOON. + Othello; iii.--3. + + + "'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow;'" + +Hummed Grant Herman to himself, taking his lonely way down the dim and +dingy streets leading to the wharves where he had his abode: + + "'I strew these opiate flowers--' + +Oh, what a woman she is! She might be Brunhilde, or she might be Burd +Helen; + + 'I strew these--' + +I wonder what she had to say to Fenton that she made him stay. Confound +that fellow! I'm not more than half sure that I'm fond of him; though I +can't bring myself fairly and squarely to dislike him. But I wish he +didn't know Mrs. Greyson quite so well; he's going to be married, too. +I wonder how he came to know her, any how. It is strange she doesn't +wear black if she is a widow. I'd like to learn something more definite +about her, but Fenton's the only one who would be likely to know, and I +certainly will not ask him. I suppose he is there yet, lounging in some +sort of an outlandish shape." + +Arthur was indeed still in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an +attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of +himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been +suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual +difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching +Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying the room a little. + +"We have been too good friends," she said, "to say good-by in public. +The old days have been pleasant, and it is hard to give them up." + +"You have insisted upon it that they are gone forever," he returned, +"until I almost begin to believe you. But it is no matter. _Che sara +sara_." + +"Yes; _che sara sara_," she echoed. "But now are you willing to do +me a favor? I haven't asked many of you." + +"You certainly deserve that I should say yes without a quibble," +replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the +risk; so I will merely answer,--I would like to do you a favor if I +may." + +She came and sat down near him, a beautiful woman, flushed and tender. +It arose perhaps from the delicate sensitiveness of both that they had +always instinctively avoided those chance contacts which between lovers +become so significant, confining themselves to rare hand-shakes at +meeting and parting; and it may be that their very scrupulousness in +this matter proves how near they had been to more emotional relations +than those of simple friendship. Now when Helen laid her hand upon her +friend's arm it marked an earnestness which showed how much she felt +what she was about to say. + +"I want you to give me something that Will gave you the other day." + +Fenton's first feeling was one of annoyance, but this was quickly +replaced by a desire to fathom the motives which prompted her request. + +"How did you know of it?" he asked. + +"By divination," she answered, with a faint smile. "Will you give it to +me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Because I ask you." + +"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?" + +"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that +in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss +Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may +lead you to--to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy +with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a +right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman +with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of +deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours. +You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy." + +"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a +tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen, +it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that +vial. It is all like a scene in _The City of Dreadful Night_. I +cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness. +Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very +strong reasons to suppose that any body else will." + +"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a +wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow +the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is +true." + +"But she will not know." + +"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to +discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to +conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the +slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any +friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial." + +He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his +arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of +those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged +in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to +appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating +pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely. + +"But what would you do with it, Helen?" + +She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought +that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift +oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been +conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in +Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish +her purpose. + +"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want +you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my +word that I will never use it myself." + +He still made no movement to surrender the vial, but she held out her +hand. + +"Come," she pleaded. "I appeal to your best self. For the sake of your +mother, Arthur,--you have told me you could refuse her nothing she +asked, and she would surely ask this if she were alive and knew. Give +it to me." + +He slowly drew from some inner pocket the little morocco case and held +it in both hands looking at it. + +"It is a comfort to me," he said. "It means an end of every thing. It +means annihilation; it means getting rid of this nightmare of +existence. I can remember when I dreaded the idea of annihilation, but +I have come to feel that it is the only good to be desired. To be done +with every thing and to forget every thing! Don't you see, Helen; I +should never be satisfied with any thing short of omnipotence and +omniscience, and annihilation is the only refuge for a nature like +that. I want to be everything; to feel the joy of the conqueror and yet +not miss the keen, fine pang of the conquered--Lowell says it +somewhere; to be + + 'Both maiden and lover'-- + +I forget it--'bee and clover, you know; to be the 'red slayer' and 'the +slain' both. Do you wonder I want to keep this?" + +A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness came over Helen. Only half +consciously she spoke a thought aloud: + +"You are half mad from introspection." + +He turned upon her a quizzical smile. + +"I dare say," said he. "It isn't a comfortable process either. If a man +has lived twenty-five years, Helen, and has not so entangled his life +in a web of circumstances that no power will ever be able to +extricate it, he may consider his first quarter century of existence a +success." + +He spoke with a bitter good humor not uncommon with him, and he +believed himself sincere. He even mentally applauded himself for the +justness of the sentiment, and was not untouched with pity for a being +in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret +complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of +relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case. +Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and +she drew the dangerous gift out of his fingers. + +She sprang up and locked it away in a cabinet. + +"There!" she exclaimed, standing before him in a sudden revulsion of +feeling, her face flushed and her eyes shining. "Now I will tell you +what I think of you. I think you mean to be good to others, but--" + +"You always think better of me than I deserve," he interrupted; "at +least you treat me better." + +"That does not necessarily indicate any leniency of judgment," retorted +Helen. "I think you are self-centered, and morbid; and if marriage +doesn't reform you, I give you up, for nothing will. Suffering is only +an effect, the cause is sensibility; and you keep yourself abnormally +sensitive by having yourself always upon the vivisection table." + +She turned and walked away from him. Her emotion was getting beyond her +control. Her friendships were keen with the intensity of her passionate +nature; she had not passed through this struggle lightly, and perhaps +the victory unnerved her more than defeat would have done. On his part +he endeavored to turn every thing off as usual with a jest. + +"Have I told you Bently's latest?" he began. "He--" + +"It is of no use," she said, returning to him, tears overflowing her +eyes. "You cannot help my making a spectacle of myself; and you had +better go. Oh, Arthur, I hope so much for you; I do so hope for +happiness coming to you out of this marriage; but I shall be so +lonely." + +Her voice broke despite her effort. She came nearer, she hesitated an +instant; then she bent over and kissed his forehead. A hot tear +splashed upon his hand. + +"There," she said. "Good night, and good-by. When you come back you +will see what a fine steady old lady I have become." + +He got on to his feet, confused, troubled, pitying her profoundly and +commiserating himself upon the awkwardness of the situation. He tried +to frame some sentence which might bridge the distance that seemed +suddenly to have opened between them. Like a farewell, a renunciation +or a dedication, that kiss impressed upon him a certain remoteness new +and oppressive. + +"Bah!" he broke off. "I can say nothing, Helen. I have thus far served +in an already sufficiently unhappy world only to make people more +miserable still. I'm not worth a faintest regret. Good-night. If I can +ever serve you--Good-by!" + + + + +XV. + +'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL. + Othello; i--3. + + +Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss, +which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and +realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his +companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt +them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not +spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being +much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been +the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had +believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning +her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard +for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love. +She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of +a blighted passion. + +She sighed deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's +disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her +work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze +her energies and enervate her whole being. + +The gown which she had worn upon the previous evening lay over a chair, +giving out, as she lifted it, an odor of tobacco smoke. Some remark +made by Grant Herman about the fumes which had filled the little parlor +came into her mind, giving a new current to her thoughts. She +unconsciously fell to thinking of the sculptor, and, by a natural +connection of ideas, of Ninitta, who was still nominally posing for +her. + +Partly from interest in the girl herself and partly from the perception +that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had +retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the +model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive +ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, +not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so +strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so +sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her +hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning +kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although Ninitta was +perhaps scarcely to be reckoned among these extremists, she yet found +so much comfort in pouring out her sorrows to one who could both +sympathize and appreciate, that little by little the whole pathetic +tale was told. + +"I did not understand," Ninitta said once in her broken English, "when +he left Rome. It was as if somebody had taken my life away somehow. I +couldn't make it seem that I was really alive all the same, though I +knew it could not be his fault. He would not have done it if he had +known. You do not believe he would have left me if he had known the +truth?" + +"No," Helen answered. "He could not have left you if he had known. It +was because he was hurt so much, and that could only be because he +loved you so much." + +"He loved me so much," poor Ninitta repeated murmuringly, "he loved me +so much." + +And all that day she followed Helen with wistful eyes, as if she longed +to hear her say again those precious words. + +"I cannot tell you what it was like in Paris," she said at another +time. "In Rome they all knew me. They knew I was betrothed, and no one +ever troubled me. But in Paris it was different. Oh, I hate Paris! And +it was so cruel that he was not there. It was so dreadful that he +should be on the other side of that horrible sea!" + +The girl was so self-forgetful in these revelations, she spoke always +with such an unshaken faith in Herman and was so free from any thought +of blaming him, that Helen could not but be touched. She soothed poor +Ninitta as well as she was able, having power to promise nothing, +seeing no way out of the entanglement, yet at least showing to the +lonely Italian that her woman's heart bled for her sorrow if she might +not alleviate it. Sometimes she felt like going to the sculptor and +entreating him to take pity upon the girl who so adoringly loved him. +Once when the model had told her how just as she had saved by long, +painful economy, nearly money enough to pay the passage to America it +was stolen and she was forced to begin the slow process over again, +Helen impulsively left her studio and found herself on the very +threshold of Herman's door before she realized what she had been about +to do. By what authority was she to interfere in a matter like this? If +Ninitta loved the sculptor who had long ago ceased to return her +affection, could matters be helped by an unloving marriage? It was not +for her, moreover, to give unasked her advice to such a man as she knew +Grant Herman to be. If he consulted her, she reflected, she might +present the pathetic, touching story which Ninitta had told her, but +she had plainly no pretext for forcing her feelings upon her master +unsought. + +She turned and went slowly up the stairs toward her little room; but +suddenly she paused. She had all at once become conscious that she +desired eagerly to know the nature of the sculptor's feelings toward +his old love. Why, she asked herself, was she so interested in what +after all did not personally concern her. A quick emotion, almost too +vague to be called a thought, made her cheek flame. + +"No, no," she said half aloud. "It is only that I am touched by +Ninitta's sadness. It is nothing more." + +But her breath came more quickly, and it was with difficulty that upon +re-entering her studio she assumed a quiet mien, lest her model should +guess at her unfulfilled errand. + +On the morning following the meeting of the Pagans at her rooms, Helen +was alone in her studio. She had told Ninitta she should be late and +the latter was therefore tardy in arriving. Mrs. Greyson uncovered her +bas-relief, now rapidly nearing completion, and stood before it, +examining critically its merits and defects. A familiar step in the +passage, a tap at the door, and Grant Herman joined her. + +"You look as fresh as ever this morning," he said. "I feared that the +entertaining of such a company of Bohemians would have tired you out." + +"No, indeed," she returned. "I am of far too much endurance to be worn +out by any thing of that sort. I have a drop of Bohemian blood in my +veins myself, I think, and I like to meet men as men--when they are +simply good fellows together, I mean. A woman usually sees men in an +attitude of either deference or defense, and there is something +inspiriting to her in being occasionally received as a comrade." + +"There are few women who can be received so," returned Herman. "I +suppose it requires both an especial temperament and especial +experiences to render a woman capable of being a comrade to men." + +The talk drifted away to general and indifferent subjects, broken here +and there by allusions and criticisms relating to the Flight of the +Months, and not infrequently dropping into brief silences. One of these +Herman broke by saying abruptly: + +"You do not know how your song has haunted me all night. I have been +saying over and over to myself + + 'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow.' + +And, indeed, I longed for some such soporific myself before morning. +Your coffee or your song, or--yourself,"--he hesitated over the last +word--kept me very effectually awake." + +"It must have been the coffee; there was little potency in either of +the other causes." + +"There is much," he returned resolutely, advancing a step nearer. "Mrs. +Greyson, I have not wasted the night. I have thought out a great many +things; the first and chief being in regard to yourself." + +His tone, the piercing glow of his eyes, warned Helen what was coming. +She thought of Ninitta, and retreated a step. + +"It is true," the sculptor continued, as if answering the doubt implied +by her movement, "that I--" + +The door opened softly and Ninitta came in. + +His outstretched hand dropped; the words died upon his lips. He turned +from one woman to the other an appealing look of hopeless sadness and +left the studio in silence. + +It was characteristic of Helen's generosity that her first thought +should be of the pain which Ninitta must feel. One glance at the model +was sufficient to show that the Italian had comprehended enough of the +interrupted scene to be made wretched; but it did not then occur to +Mrs. Greyson that to Ninitta's jealous soul, unsuspicious of Herman, +the only explanation of a fondness between the sculptor and his pupil +lay in an effort on the part of the latter to win from the model her +rightful and long betrothed lover. + + + + +XVI. + +CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH. + As You Like It; i.--2. + + +Grant Herman sat in his studio in the gathering twilight thinking +gloomily. However little Mrs. Greyson suspected the tumult which would +be aroused in Ninitta's breast by the misadventure of the morning, the +sculptor was too well aware of the Italian's passionate nature not to +dread the consequences of the jealousy she was sure to feel. He knew, +moreover, that Ninitta's rage would vent itself not upon him but upon +Helen, and he wondered how best to avert the danger that threatened. + +He debated with himself, too, how much he owed to the girl who gave her +life up so unreservedly to him. His old love--"call it rather mere +boyish passion," he-thought scornfully--was long since dead beyond +hope; yet the devotion which it had awakened in Ninitta burned on as +steadily as ever. Had he now a right to repulse the love he had himself +called into being; to throw aside the fondness he had himself fostered +and which he had once prized above measure. + +"No," he thought, "a thousand times no. A man must be a villain who +would not marry a girl under such circumstances. I am hers; the fact +that I have changed is my misfortune, not her fault. If I have any +manliness about me, I won't let things go on in this way any longer. +I'll marry Ninitta. It is the smallest reparation I can make for the +long years of pain I have caused her. There is no other course for me. + +"But I do not love her, and a woman, they say, always instinctively +feels it when a man's heart is not hers. Nonsense! That is only a +cowardly excuse. At least Ninitta would never be troubled. She has not +known so much love that she can draw very sharp comparisons. No; she +will be satisfied; and I--well, if a man is such a devilish fool as I +have been, it remains for him to pay the penalty. Oh, if youth only +knew!" + +He sighed deeply and began to walk up and down the studio, in which the +dusk was gathering thickly. A last faint gleam from a window high in +the riverward wall fell upon one of the mutilated goddesses in the +gallery. Herman looked up, contemplating the phantom-like head +gloomily. Something in its pose, or perhaps more truly something in his +own mind, suggested a faint likeness to Helen, as if it were her ghost +looking down from some far height upon the conflict of his soul. + +"Ah!" he cried hotly to himself. "And she? How can I give up the hope +of winning her? What was a boy's foolish fancy to the passion of a +man--and for such a woman! She is half goddess. No, no; I cannot do it. +I cannot marry this Italian peasant, this model that has who knows what +history! I will not; I owe something to myself, to my art. What is the +simple happiness of Ninitta to my art? I should be a fool to ignore how +much more to the world my own well-being is worth than is hers; and +what could I not do with the inspiration of the other! Oh, my God!" + +The darkness grew. The phantom faded imperceptibly away. He was left +alone in the darkness to fight out his battle. He marched with great +strides, avoiding obstacles by a certain sixth sense born of constant +familiarity with the place. He fought manfully, persuading himself that +his scruples were as idle as air, remnants of the long since outgrown +superstitions of his childhood. He defiantly claimed the right to be +true to his powers, to his genius, rather than to an empirical standard +erected by narrow moralists. He should be thankful that he had escaped +entangling his life by that absurd marriage in Rome seven years ago, +and that he was now free to win a wife worthy Of himself and of his +art. + +Yet he cut through all the meshes of logic he had himself been weaving, +by striking his strong hands together there in the dark, and crying +aloud, his voice startling him in the stillness: + +"My God! What a poltroon I have become! Shall I cast on others the +burden of my own mistakes?" + +And seizing hat and cloak he left the studio, taking his way towards +the narrow street where Ninitta lodged, hastening to ask her to marry +him before his resolution faltered. + + + + +XVII. + +THIS "WOULD" CHANGES. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +Herman found Ninitta alone in the attic which served her for a home in +this bleak northern city, so far and so different from her own sunny +Capri. + +Bare and half furnished as was the room, the girl had contrived to +impart to it a certain air which removed it from the common-place. A +bit of flimsy drapery, begged from some studio, hung over one of the +windows; a rude print of the Madonna was pinned to the wall, and under +it, on the wooden table, was a bunch of withered flowers. They were +roses which Helen had given Ninitta, and the Italian, returning home +that day, had in her jealous rage thrown them to the floor and trampled +upon them. Then remembering that they had been offered to the Madonna, +she had been seized with a superstitious fear, and carefully restoring +the battered flowers, had eagerly vowed a fresh bunch to the Holy +Mother if she might be forgiven this sacrilege. + +But the most beautiful article in the room was a cast of a woman's +shoulder. It had been modeled by Herman in the earliest days of his +acquaintance with Ninitta, when she had been still only his model and +not his betrothed. He was touched as he looked at it now. Yellow with +time and soiled by its various journeyings, it still preserved unmarred +its lovely shape, exquisite curve melting into exquisite curve as +softly and sweetly as in those glowing days when he had molded it under +the sky of Italy. + +He looked from the cast to Ninitta. He had only seen her at the studio, +and he experienced a faint feeling of surprise at detecting a subtle +difference in her here at home. It was nothing so tangible that he +could have told by what means he received the impression, yet it was +sufficiently definite to make him lose something of the freedom with +which he had always addressed her. She was no longer simply the model, +she was an Italian woman in her own home. + +The years during which they had been separated had formed and +strengthened Ninitta's character. If Herman had not before noted the +alteration, it was due in part to his pre-occupation and in part to the +force of old habit which made her manner toward him much the same as +formerly. To-night he began to appreciate the change in her, and he +felt the awkwardness which always results from the discovery that we +must adapt ourselves to a modified condition in a friend. + +On her side Ninitta was naturally surprised at seeing the sculptor. She +had come to regard as hopeless all speculations upon his intentions, +and she had waited patiently until he should choose to show her favor, +tacitly acknowledging his right to do whatever should be his good +pleasure. Had he come at any time and said, "Ninitta, I am here to +marry you," she would gladly but quietly have made ready to follow +where he chose to lead, even to the world's end. Equally, had he said, +"Ninitta, I have come to say good-by; you will never see me again," she +would have acquiesced without a murmur, and then, perhaps, have taken +her own life. As long as it was his simple wish, uninfluenced by the +will of another, she would never have questioned. + +Now, however, all passive acquiescence was at an end. Since the scene +in Helen's studio, Ninitta had an object upon which to expend all her +energies, and she even almost forgot to love Herman in the intensity of +her sudden jealous hatred of Mrs. Greyson. Yesterday Grant Herman would +have found a woman not unlike the Ninitta of old times, tender, loving, +pathetically submissive; today he was confronted by a fury, only +restrained by the respect for his presence born of long habit. + +"Good evening!" he said gently, as he entered, his mood softened by the +struggle through which he had passed in his studio. + +"Good evening!" she answered defiantly, in Italian. "So you are not +with her!" + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +He had been wholly unprepared for this outburst, and for the instant +was too surprised to at all understand it. + +A sudden rage seemed to seize Ninitta, which swept away all barriers of +restraint. + +"_Si_, _si_, _si_," she cried, "I am not blind! What if +you are my betrothed, when this woman comes to entrap you, to bewitch +you with an evil eye, to steal your soul! Yes, yes; you are not with +her to-night as you were last night. Did I not see you myself come out +of her house?" + +"Stop!" he said in his most commanding tone, but without anger. + +The calmness and decision of the manner arrested her. She sank back +into a chair, regarding him with defiant eyes. + +"So you have followed me," continued Herman, speaking with painful +slowness, so that every word seemed to poor Ninitta to fall upon her +like a curse; "so you have played the spy upon me. Ah!" + +As he looked at her she began to cower. She shrank back in her seat, +putting up her hands to shield her face from his gaze. + +"Yet I meant to marry you," he said, half to himself, although still +addressing her. "I came to-night to say, 'Come, Ninitta, let us take up +the broken romance that a cruel mistake interrupted there in Rome.' I +had long ago outgrown my old fancy, but I meant to be true to my +promise to you. I meant to give up even my ambition for your sake; to +make your life happy and secure. And this is your trust in me! If you +really loved me, to track me like a thief would have been impossible to +you. And where have you learned this trick of playing the spy?" he went +on with growing wrath, becoming more and more cruel with every word. +"It is a relic of your Paris life, I fancy. It is hardly a resource to +which a good girl would be driven. I at least believed you when you +told me you had been true to me." + +He spoke rapidly, aggressively. The fact that he was outraging his own +instincts in beating with bitter words the girl who bowed before him +with drooping head and disheveled hair made him but the more harsh. To +fall from the height of self-sacrifice into a pool of vulgar intrigue! +Bah! His disgust at himself for ever having known this woman seemed too +great to be borne. + +Yet under all his passionate protest and repulsion he was conscious +that he doubted what he was himself saying with so much vehemence; that +he secretly believed Ninitta to be true and pure, and that to her +Italian blood, to her peasant nurture, was due the espionage in which +she had been self-betrayed. The sting of conscience, too, in the +knowledge that the model's jealousy of Helen was well founded, the +humiliation of finding his feelings and motives discovered, increased +his irritation. He felt a base desire to stab and humiliate Ninitta, +but for whom he might be free to win the one woman he had ever loved; +and the more his denunciations recoiled to hurt himself, the more +eagerly he poured them out, as in some moods of mental anguish one +finds relief in the pain of self-inflicted physical hurts. + +"Yes," he said, more and more completely abandoning control of himself; +"yes, this tells sufficiently what you have learned in Paris." + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and groveling +there. "No, no! For the love of the Virgin, signor, not that! I have +been good. Oh, for the love of God, signor! For the love of God!" + +She was shaken by the storm of sobs in which her words ended. She got +hold of his feet and refused to rise when he attempted to lift her. Her +long hair, escaped from its stilletto, fell about her face. Even in +this agitated moment the sculptor in Grant Herman noted with a sharp, +aesthetic pleasure the beautiful curves of her neck and shoulders. + +"Pity," she went on between her agonized sobs. "Oh, forgive me! I will +do any thing you wish. I will go away and leave you." + +He stooped and raised her by main force, yet tenderly. + +"There, there, Ninitta," he said, "I was wrong. I do believe you are a +good girl; but you should not have played the spy." + +He soothed her as well as he was able, her violence spending itself in +passionate tears. She drew herself away from him, and sat down again in +the chair she had been occupying. She put up her hands to her head, +twisting the loose tresses into a great coil. The sleeve of her dress, +unfastened in her agitation, fell back from her rounded arm. The superb +lines of her figure were displayed by her attitude. Her face, flushed +with weeping and lighted by the still tear-wet eyes, if not beautiful, +was appealing and pitiful. Some fiber touched of old vibrated anew in +his being. He made a step forward. + +"Ninitta," he said, "I came to-night to ask you to marry me at once; to +fulfill the promise I made you so long ago." + +The words and the tone both were tender, but he had said those same +words in anger just before. + +"But you do not love me," she responded, her arms dropping pathetically +into her lap. "You have said it." + +"But I was angry," answered Herman, for the moment almost believing +that his old love was re-awakened. "I did not mean you to believe it." + +"If you do love me," she said, a new look coming into her eyes, "you +will promise me never to see her again." + +He started back as if from a blow. His frail dream of passion was +shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt +that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged +into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush and her eye kindled. + +"Promise me," she repeated. "It is little for love to ask. It is my +right." + +With instinctive feminine guile she leaned towards him in an attitude +so beautiful, so appealing that even now he was moved. But with this +emotion came, too, a subtle if now fainter sense of degradation that he +was susceptible to this dangerous fascination, with a painful +consciousness of how wide a moral gulf had opened between them by the +anger and vulgar jealousy which Ninitta displayed. It is not +impossible, too, that his instinctive clinging to Helen was a stronger +power than he knew; while still through all his mingled emotions ran +the resolve he had made to give himself up to his old betrothed. + +"No," he said; yet as he moved slowly towards the door he had the air +of a man who still deliberates. + +She threw herself back in her seat with a touching gesture of despair, +but also with a gleam of malice in her eyes, which he, turning with his +hand upon the latch, caught and understood. + +"No," he repeated with final decision. "No, no!" + + + + +XVIII. + +BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE. + Love's Labor's Lost; ii.--I. + + +Fenton had returned to Boston with his bride, but as yet Helen had not +seen him. One morning late in March, however, he came to call. + +"I could not come before," he said after the first greeting, "'I have +married a wife,' and the amount of arrangement and adjustment implied +in that statement is simply astounding." + +"I am glad to see you at last," she returned. "And your wife, is she +well?" + +"My wife," replied he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar +term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful +reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith +in a different way from the crowd." + +Helen crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair by the +window. + +"He ought to understand," was her thought. "Why cannot he see that it +is impossible for his wife and me to harmonize. We have no common +ground." + +"I shall be glad to," she said aloud, inwardly shrinking at the need of +speaking disingenuously to one with whom she had so long been upon +terms of frankness. "I will come very soon; to-day or to-morrow. +To-day, though, I must go and see my bas-relief. It is all ready to be +cut for the furnace; I only want to take a last look at it, to be sure +that every thing is right. If it will not bore you," she added, a +little hesitatingly, "you might come too; it is your last chance to +find fault to any advantage, for any changes must be made at once." + +"I'd like to go," answered her friend, looking at his watch, "if I can +get back to luncheon. Yes, there's plenty of time." + +"Benedick, the married man," laughed Helen. "That I should ever live to +see this air of domesticity!" + +They crossed the Common, chatting idly, and both conscious that the +frankness of their old intercourse was somehow lacking; that it was +necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the +former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred +during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of +amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations +which no longer had real existence. + +"Oh, Arthur," Helen laughed, suddenly, "let's not go on in this way! +Let us quarrel, or something. Say a wicked epigram; do any thing, +only don't be so eminently amiable!" + +"My head is as empty of ideas," he returned laughing, in his turn, "as +is a modern title-page of punctuation points. Besides, Edith has +forbidden wicked epigrams." + +"Does she therefore suppose she can suppress them?" + +"Oh, I don't know," responded Fenton, good-humoredly. "I am not in as +epigrammatic a frame of mind as I was." + +"'Tis a good sign." + +"Yes; a sign I am growing inane and respectable." + +"I can imagine you one about as easily as the other." + +"That is bitter-sweet; a compliment and a flout." + +"If I had said that," Helen observed, smiling, "you would have +retorted, with a look of gloomy solemnity, that most things in life are +bitter-sweet; unless, indeed, you felt called upon to phrase it that it +had the advantage of most earthly matters by not being wholly bitter." + +"Was I ever guilty of such commonplace attempts at epigrams as that?" +returned Arthur. "If so it is certainly a good thing that I have given +up repartee for matrimony." + +"Oh, that is brilliant beside many of your attempts, I assure you. And +as for your giving them up--I reserve my decision." + +"You shall see, skeptic," he said lightly. "I expect to change the face +of the whole world if necessary." + +"It is a common error of ardent temperaments," she returned pleasantly, +but with evident sincerity, "to assume that a state of feeling can +change the world." + +"But I must, I will," he began eagerly. Then the light died out of his +face and he ended with a shrug. + +Helen put up her hand with an impulsive gesture, as if about to speak. + +Then letting her arms fall by her side, she turned to unlock the studio +door, which by this time they had reached. + +The bas-relief was still shrouded in its damp envelopes, which Helen +carefully removed, keeping Fenton away, that he might first see the +work as a whole, and not lose its legitimate effect by catching +fragmentary glimpses as it was uncovered. When at last it was fully +disclosed, she called him to her as she stood before it. + +"By Jove! That's stunning!" he exclaimed, after an instant's pause, +which gave him time to see it fairly. "Helen, you have outdone +yourself! That figure is simply superb. I hadn't an idea you would come +out so well. I'm wonderfully proud of you." + +"You are more amiable than ever," she responded; but her flushed cheek +showed that she was touched by his earnest praise. "For that figure I +have to thank Ninitta's posing. She is an inspiration." + +"But Ninitta did not inspire that splendid head," observed Arthur, +pointing with his cane at the December, "and you evidently did that +_con amore_. By Jove! It's Grant Herman, as I live!" + +As he spoke he turned and saw Ninitta on the threshold. + +"Shall you want me to-day?" the latter asked of Helen. + +"What made that girl look so savage?" Fenton questioned as the door +closed behind the model. + +"She perhaps chooses to be jealous of me," Helen replied composedly. + +"_Elle a peutetre raison_." + +"Perhaps." + +"You say that too calmly by half," was his gay response. "Yet as every +work a woman does has a man for its end--I learned that from the +classics; Penelope, you know, and even washwoman Nausicaae--I suppose it +is fair to assume this had. Only who is the man?" + +Helen flushed slightly. She recalled the ambition with which she had +begun this work, to make the man beside her praise its completion; and +she was conscious that before she finished it was the praise of Herman +for which she strove. + +"It is filthy lucre that inspires me," she replied steadily. "I need no +other incentive." + +They walked about the studio, talking of the bas-relief as seen from +different points; of how it was to be cut for firing; and on the safe +ground of art they forgot all personal constraints, until the striking +of a clock aroused Fenton to a sense of the flight of time. + +"I must go," he said. "I am no end glad I came. The truth is I am not +very well acquainted with this married man, and it is comfortable to +slip back occasionally into a familiar bachelor mood. However," he +continued with his brightest smile, "I like the Benedick far better +than I should ever have dreamed possible; and his wife is charming. And +I want to say, too," he added, "that I have a thousand times thanked +you for taking that vial before I went to be married. I'm in a spasm of +virtuousness just now, and it is pleasant to remember that I did not +have it that day." + +They went down stairs and out into the soft, spring-like day, +sauntering homeward in a happy and accordant mood. Arthur urged Helen's +going home to lunch with himself and Edith, but to Helen the morning +was far too precious to be ended in a possibly inharmonious meeting +with Mrs. Fenton. + +And that afternoon Herman sent for Mrs. Greyson in all haste. Ninitta +had vented her jealous rage upon the bas-relief, destroying the head of +December which she heard Fenton say must have been done _con +amore_, and the beautiful May for which she herself had posed. + + + + +XIX. + +NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS. + Romeo and Juliet; ii.--4. + + +Mrs. Fenton's wedding reception was largely attended. However strongly +the artist might savor of Bohemianism, his wife was connected with +certain prominent Philistines, and he had exhibited a most remarkable +readiness to have them present in force. + +"Into the camp of Philistia itself," muttered Rangely to Bently, as +they elbowed their way through the crowd. "By the great horn spoon, if +there isn't Peter Calvin! Arthur calls him the Great Boston Art Greek. +That ever I should live to see the humbug under Fenton's roof-tree!" + +"Pshaw!" returned Bently with an oath. "What a set of rubbishy old fobs +and dowagers there is here anyway. Is this the kind of people Fenton +means to know?" + +"Means to know," echoed Rangely. "He's got to go down on his marrow +bones to get them to consent to know him. They patronize art, and that +means that they snub artists." + +"Humph!" exclaimed Bently. "Is he sycophant enough to do that?" + +"That's as you look at it. His wife probably decides the matter for +him. She very naturally likes to know what she would call 'nice +people.' How those women chatter! I wonder what they find to talk +about." + +"Not necessarily any thing. They always talk all the same whether +they've any thing to say or not." + +"How much of life is wasted in enduring people for whom one does not +care," philosophized Rangely, looking over the throng which filled to +overflowing the Fentons' somewhat limited rooms. "Ah! There is Dr. +Ashton. How do you do, Doctor?" + +"As well as could be expected," the Doctor answered, "in this +antiquated assembly." + +"Oh, Boston is only an antiquarian society," laughed Rangely, "and +these old tabbies are all honorary members. By Jove, though, there are +some awfully pretty girls here." + +"I've observed that Boston girls are apt to be pretty when they give +their minds to it," remarked Bently. "Not when they wander round with +Homer under one arm and Virgil under the other and dyspepsia in the +stomach, but when they are deliberately frivolous." + +The throng separated them at this moment, and Dr. Ashton went in search +of host and hostess. Arthur caught sight of his tall figure, and made a +sign at once of recognition and summons. Struggling between a young +Episcopal clergyman and a corpulent old lady, Dr. Ashton made his way +with difficulty to the spot where his friend was standing. + +"You are the most married man I know, Arthur," was his greeting. +"Brigham Young wasn't a circumstance. I have been half an hour crossing +the room." + +"Dr. Ashton, Edith; my wife, Will," was the only reply Fenton made, +unless one could interpret the quizzical glance he bestowed upon his +friend. + +"I feel already acquainted with you," was Mrs. Fenton's remark, "I have +heard of you so often. My husband has spoken to me so much of his +friends that it is hard for me to realize that I do not know them +myself." + +"You have been very little in Boston, I believe," Dr. Ashton said, +looking at her in a sudden surprise at remembering that he had seen her +face before. + +"Very little," replied she, "I have been abroad a great part of my life +and--" + +New claims upon her attention ended the conversation with that charming +abruptness characteristic of such an occasion, and the Doctor was left +to elbow his way out of the crush, with the sense of having done all +that would be required of him. He found a corner where he could watch +the hostess and fell to wondering whether Mrs. Fenton in her turn +remembered their previous meeting. + +Edith Fenton was a slender, nun-like woman, too pale, with a smile of +wonderful attractiveness. "A woman to wear lilies," was the way Grant +Herman put it afterward; a remark which conveyed well the purity of her +face. Her ease of manner showed familiarity with the conventionalities +of life, yet in some vague way she seemed removed from the people by +whom she was to-day surrounded. + +"She has been brought up in the old narrow ways," Dr. Ashton reflected, +"but there are great possibilities about her. She'll either be the +making of Fenton or send him to the dogs. She will scarcely find much +room in her house for many of his former friends, I fancy." + +He stood watching the people and amusing himself with cynical +speculations until he saw Grant Herman's great figure among the guests. +He knew him but slightly and looked at him with an indifference which a +couple of hours later he regretted. Herman cared little for the +formalities of the occasion, and very likely might have gone away +without even being presented to the hostess had not Fred Rangely taken +him in charge and brought him safely through that ceremony. Now the +sculptor was looking for Mrs. Greyson, of whom he soon caught sight, +when he began making his way towards her. She however perceived him, +and with the feeling that she could not bear to meet him in public just +at this time, she evaded him by slipping into the window where her +husband was ensconced. + +"Take me out of this, please," she said, "I am tired." + +He gave her his arm without speaking, and together they made their way +from the room. + +"I want to talk to you," he remarked easily. "Mayn't I walk home with +you?" + +When she was ready they went together out into the starlit streets. +Neither spoke at first, each carrying on a train of thought to which +the other could have no adequate clew. + +"Who is Arthur's wife?" Dr. Ashton asked at length. "I know she was a +Miss Caldwell, that she came from Providence, and that she has been an +orphan so short a time that they had a perfectly quiet wedding; but +that is the extent of my knowledge. Is she an artist?" + +"An amateur," answered Helen. "She studied in Paris. He met her there. +She is a relative, I forget just how far or near, of Peter Calvin. She +seems to me an icicle. Think of Arthur's marrying a _religieuse_!" + +"What is his game, I wonder," said her companion thoughtfully. "Do you +know when she was in Paris? Was it when we were there." + +"Let me see," Helen responded, with a mental calculation. "Yes; she +must have been there the last year we were. Why? Did you ever meet +her?" + +"Perhaps," was the careless reply. + +They reached Helen's door as he spoke. + +"Come in," she said. "Fortunately I can make you a salad. It is a long +time since we had a _petit souper_ together. I have, too, +something to say to you." + +He followed her to the pretty parlor, and sat idly chatting while she +made her preparations for the supper. + + + + +XX. + +THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED. + Merchant of Venice; iii.--2. + + +It was a dainty little table to which Helen invited her husband when +every thing was ready. The china was of odd bits picked up here and +there abroad, and it was now disposed with an artist's eye for color +and grouping. A tall bottle of Rhine wine had come from some mysterious +nook, and beside it were a pair of fine old German glasses, frail as +bubbles. + +"I have always to offer my guests Rhine wine," Helen said, "for I've no +glasses for any thing else. Arthur is ungracious enough to object. He +does not like white wine as you do." + +"I do like it," her guest answered, drawing the cork, "and so does +Arthur, only he does not know it. He has somewhere stumbled upon the +whim of pretending not to, and he can deceive himself more completely +than any other man I ever saw. Rhine wine is the most poetic of +beverages. It should go down like oil and only leave a fragrance like a +poet's dream behind it." + +"That is quite a rhapsody for you, Will; only your cool tone gives it a +certain cynical flavor." + +"I mean all I say, I assure you. Champagne is vulgar. It is the drink +of self-made snobs and cads who wish to pass for men of the world; but +Rhine wine is the drink for poets and artists." + +"I am delighted to hear you defend it; it is very good of you, when I +happen to know you are not fond of it. It is a graceful return for my +inhospitality in not giving you your favorite Burgundy, but I haven't a +drop." + +"Oh, don't mind the wine! I came to see you," Dr. Ashton said, with his +delightful smile. "How droll it was to see Arthur to-day. Do you think +he has really persuaded himself he is in love with his wife?" + +"Arthur has great adaptability," Helen returned. "I think he believes +he is in love. I'm sure I hope you'll not feel it your duty to tell him +he isn't." + +"I'm not Mephistopheles," answered Dr. Ashton, smiling, and watching +appreciatively as she made the salad. + +Mrs. Greyson had dressed carefully for the reception from which she had +just come, and her cream-colored cashmere, with soft old thread lace, +and a bunch of amber-hued roses at the throat, became her as only a +dress chosen by an artist could. It fell away from her exquisite arms, +and from among the lace rose her beautiful neck, the stuff of her gown +setting off the lovely texture of her skin to perfection. + +"I must not ruin my best attire," she said lightly, gathering it up. +"Now Ninitta has spoiled my bas-relief, it may be long before I get +more. I owe you a good deal, Will, for letting me study modeling in +Paris." + +"It was pure selfishness," he returned good-humoredly. "I wanted to +keep you busy so that I might go my own way. But what about your +bas-relief? Who spoiled it? Who is Ninitta, and what has she against +you?" + +"That is what I wanted to tell you." + +She did not speak again for a moment, seemingly intent upon the exact +measurement of the ingredients of her salad. In reality she was +considering how best to present what she had to say. She mentally ran +over the points she wished to make, becoming thereby conscious that she +had herself come to no definite conclusions upon the topic she was +about to discuss. She looked furtively at her husband, noting his +attitude, his expression, and whatever her past experience enabled her +to construe into indications of his mood. As well and as long as she +had known this man, she was still ignorant of the key to his nature--that +feeling or motive which, touched in an ultimate appeal, would +always insure a response. Conscience is the fruit of the tree of +experience, and, taken in this sense, every man must be possessed of a +conscience, which by its inner voice re-enforces any pleading which +coincides with its dictates. What was the nature of her husband's +inward monitor Helen had never been able to discover and at this moment +she realized keenly her ignorance. + +"Will," she said earnestly, laying down her salad-fork and spoon, "I +think it is wrong for us to live as we do." + +He shrugged his shoulders, looking at her curiously. + +"I cannot flatter myself that you care to return to the old +uncomfortableness." + +She flushed warmly, with a keen pang of mingled pain and indignation. + +"No," she replied. "No; never that. It is not for ourselves, but for +others." + +"Others! Fenton?" + +She flushed more deeply still. + +"I have told you already that you are mistaken about my regard for +Arthur. It was not he I meant." + +She served her guest, and sat playing nervously with her fork as he ate +and praised the salad. + +"Mr. Herman sent for me the other afternoon," she began again, forcing +herself to speak calmly. "My model Ninitta is very fond of him, and +chose to be jealous of his praise of my work. It might have all gone +over without an outburst, I suppose, if she had not had her attention +called to the fact that I had modeled his head for December. Why she +had never happened to notice it I don't know; she was in the studio +constantly." + +"Not when he was there?" queried Dr. Ashton, holding up his graceful, +antique wine-glass and admiring it. + +"No, not when he was there," repeated his wife. "She had pounded off +the head when he sent for me with a mallet she had picked up in his +studio. I never saw him in such a rage. She was gone when I got there. +She didn't make any attempt to conceal it. She came stalking +melodramatically into his studio with the mallet and laid it down. +'There,' said she, 'now kill me. I have broken her work.' It was like a +fashion magazine story. He thought at first she had gone mad." + +"So she had. Women are always insane when they are jealous. I wish I +had Arthur's knack at epigram, and I'd make that sound original." + +"He says he was very harsh," Helen continued, "though I fancy he could +not be quite that in any circumstances. It was very hard," she added +with a sigh. "It was like looking at a dead child to see my best work +ruined. It was really a part of myself." + +"But can't it be repaired? It was in the clay, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, but I fear for my exhausted enthusiasm. I can never do it as it +was before. My poor, unlucky December." + +She toyed with her glass absently, apparently for the moment forgetting +her companion, who continued his supper with no less relish than +before. He watched her keenly, however, fully aware that there was more +to be told. He was a man too accustomed to follow any desire or indulge +any whim not to notice appreciatively, as he had noticed many times +before, how beautiful were the curves of his wife's arms and throat, +and with what grace her head was poised. He had once defined a liberal +man as one who could appreciate his own wife, and he would have been +far more insensible than he was, if, with this beautiful woman before +him he had not been, judged by his own standard, extremely liberal. + +"And this has what to do with the question of our relations being +known?" he asked. + +She started from her reverie, the red again showing faintly in her +cheek. + +"It is hardly fair," she answered in a tone softer and lower than that +in which she had been speaking, "to tell you all that Mr. Herman said. +He wishes to marry me." + +"And you wish you were free to have it so?" + +There was once more a pause. Helen busied herself in an elaborate +arrangement of the torn lettuce leaves upon her plate, seemingly +concentrating all her thoughts upon forming them into an intricate +figure. + +"Will," she said, suddenly, lifting her eyes and leaning towards him, +"I do not know how to make you understand. I haven't succeeded so well +in my attempts thus far in life as to be very sanguine of doing it now. +You do not know how ashamed and contemptible I felt for being party to +the deception that made it possible for him to speak so to me. He was +so honest, so earnest; he was so unconscious of the barriers between +us. I felt that I had done him such an irreparable wrong by concealing +the truth. He had a right to know that I am a married woman." + +"Did you tell him?" + +"No; but I must. I want to be free from the promise we made to each +other." + +"It all comes," returned her husband without any show of irritation, +"from my telling Fenton." + +"I cannot see what that has to do with it. I like the absence from +questioning, the avoidance of gossip, as much as you can; but it makes +me feel as if I were a living lie to have Mr. Herman bringing his +honest love to me to be met only by deception. It is cruel and it is +wrong." + +"That depends entirely upon how you define wrong," retorted Dr. Ashton +coolly. "I do not see why it is wrong for me to decline to sacrifice my +convenience to Mr. Herman's sentiment. But without going into the +question of metaphysics, let us look at the matter reasonably. Do you +love Mr. Herman?" + +Notwithstanding the studied nonchalance of his tone, a glance into his +eyes might have shown Helen how much importance he attached to her +answer. A woman is peculiarly dangerous when she is telling one man +that another loves her. The masculine greed of possession is aroused by +the mere thought of a possible rival, and Dr. Ashton was conscious at +this moment of a kindling desire himself to win Helen's love, which he +knew perfectly well had never been his. + +"That is not at all relevant," was her reply, her eyes downcast. "The +question of honesty is enough now. At least I respect Mr. Herman, and I +must treat him squarely, as you would say. You have always told me to +be 'a square fellow,' you know," she added, raising her glance with a +faint smile. + +"But if you tell him," said her husband, with a subtle tinge of +impatience in his tone, "others must know. You can't go on letting one +after another into the secret without its soon becoming public +property." + +"Why not then?" she responded. "I wonder we have been able to keep it +so long. It is sure to be known now you have come home. I do not mean +to proclaim it upon the housetops; but to let it work out if it will. +What harm can it do?" + +"It will harm me. My life is not so secluded as yours is, Helen, It +will make things confoundedly awkward. I shall have to go about giving +endless explanations. Besides, here is Arthur's wife. I particularly +don't want her to know." + +"Why not? It is precisely that I was coming to. She seems to feel far +more kindly to me than I should have supposed possible. I can't lie to +her, Will. She has already asked me questions about my past life hard +to answer. I want to tell her, so that we may have an honest basis for +our friendship. I don't want to lose my hold on her." + +"Nor on Arthur," acquiesced he gravely. "It is for that reason that I +say you had better not tell her. I usually know what I am saying, do I +not? I tell you it is for your own sake that I warn you to be quiet. +Arthur isn't going to be held in the leash very long by that piece of +china-ware piety, and it is to you he will naturally turn for sympathy. +Don't spoil your chance of his friendship by breaking with her yet." + +"Will," his wife said, with a glitter in her eyes he knew of old, +"sometimes you talk like a very fiend incarnate." + +"That," he replied rising, "is precisely what I am. There are a few +rare, but fairly well authenticated cases on record, Helen, where a man +under stress of circumstances, has been able to keep his own counsel; +women without a confidant go mad. For your own sake you'd better trust +me, now that Arthur isn't available; so I'll come and see you again. I +am obliged to you for this jolly little supper. Your salads always were +perfection. I'd like to stay and have you make me some coffee, but I +have an engagement at twelve. Good-night." + + + +XXI. + +HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; iv.--2. + + +When Grant Herman attempted to speak with Mrs. Greyson at the Fenton's +reception, he had more in view than simply the desire of being near the +woman he loved. He was full of trouble and bewilderment, and +instinctively turned toward her for aid and sympathy. + +The scene between himself and Helen, to which the latter had alluded in +her conversation with Dr. Ashton, was of far deeper import than her +words might have seemed to imply. In the first shock of discovering +that her work was broken she had been so overcome, that although she +struggled bravely to conceal her feelings, she had excited the +sculptor's keenest pity; and it not unnaturally followed that in +attempting to express his sympathy he found himself telling his love +before he was aware. He had determined to be silent upon this subject. +Uncertain what were Helen's feelings towards him and restrained by a +sense of loyalty to the bond which united him to Ninitta, he had +resolved to bury his love in his own breast, at least until time gave +him opportunity of honorably declaring it. Now circumstances betrayed +him into an avowal of his passion; and he was not without the indignant +feeling that Ninitta's act had freed him from all obligations to her. +It might have required an ingenious casuist to arrive logically at the +conclusion that an injury which the Italian had done to another +released him from his plighted word, but the person injured was the +woman he loved, and he blindly felt that Ninitta had struck at himself +through his most sensitive feelings. He renounced all the fealty to +which he had been held by a sense of honor, and he now poured out to +Helen the full tide of his passionate love. + +The sculptor was not a man to be lightly moved, but it is these calm, +grave natures that once aroused are most irresistible. His passionate +outburst took Helen unaware; she scarcely knew what she did, and she +became suddenly aware of a truth so overwhelming that every thing else +faded into insignificance beside it. + +"I love you!" he cried out; and at the word she first knew, with a +poignant pang of mingled bliss and anguish, that she too loved him. + +It seemed to her that some power above her own volition ruled her, as +in moments of high excitement the body sometimes appears to declare its +independence of the will, and to act wholly by its own decisions. She +was aware that she raised her eyes to his, although she would have +given much to avoid his glance; and she knew that it was from what he +read there that he took courage to fold her in his embrace. + +Yet with his arms about her and his piercing kisses upon her face, +Helen felt as if sinking helplessly into a mighty ocean; as if all +struggles must be unavailing, and she could only yield to the +resistless love which engulfed her. + +From this first feeling of powerlessness, however, her strong nature +sprang with a sharp recoil. She was too noble to surrender without a +struggle. She would not even think whether she loved this man; that +might be considered upon some safe vantage ground; now all energy must +be concentrated upon escaping from the deadly peril in which she found +herself. + +Helen had freed herself as far as she was able from the marriage bond +which had so galled her, and she was glad to forget that such a tie had +ever existed, but she yet remembered that she was still a wife, and the +kiss of a man not her husband overwhelmed her with shuddering +humiliation and fear. She struggled from her lover's embrace with such +an expression of terror upon her face, that he started back amazed and +grieved. + +He began to stammer confused words of contrition, of sorrow, of love, +and of supplication. + +"How could you!" she gasped. "Oh, leave me!" + +There came into her excited mind a way of escape, upon which, even +though it brought with it a sense of baseness, she seized in despair. + +"Ninitta," she said. "Ninitta!" + +He gave her a look of pain which went to her very heart. He did not +move or answer, but his whole soul seemed to look through his dark eyes +in pitiful appeal. + +"Go," she continued, but in a hurried voice which betrayed her +agitation. "Leave me now. Oh, I cannot bear it!" + +And crushed with pain and shame, she buried her face in her hands and +burst into tears. + +Herman made a step towards her, but instantly she recovered herself, +looking up with swimming eyes and lips that quivered despite her utmost +effort. + +"No," she said, "do not touch me. You must go. I cannot bear another +word. Forgive me," she went on rapidly, as he hesitated, still with +those appealing eyes fixed upon her. "Oh, forgive me, but go." + +He turned slowly and moved towards the door. The broken bas-relief, +with its beautiful mutilated figure caught his eye, and seemed again to +remind him that he had at last a right to speak to Helen, unhampered by +the thought of Ninitta. He looked back as if he would even now disobey +her and plead his love anew. But her eyes refused his prayer before it +could be uttered. He lingered still an instant. + +"I cannot go," he broke out suddenly. "I love you! I must stay! I must +at least have an answer. Do you think a man could kiss you once and +then leave you like this?" + +She shivered as if she felt anew his passionate embrace and shrank from +it. She threw her glance about as to discover some means of escape. The +gesture, the look, overwhelmed him with sudden remorse. He trusted +himself not for a single backward look now, but rushed out of the +studio, leaving her sitting there like the princess of the fairy tale +who overcame the genii only by recourse to immortal fire which consumed +her also. + +Alone in his studio the sculptor strode up and down, struggling with +the emotion which mastered him. He debated with himself whether Helen +loved him or not; yet the more carefully he recalled his interview with +her, the more impossible he found it to determine. But hope plucked +courage out of this very uncertainty, and clung to the belief that had +not Helen in her heart some affection for him, she could not have been +so touched. + +But what of Ninitta? He threw back his head and walked down the studio, +his steps sounding sharply upon the hard cement floor. What of Ninitta? +He had absurdly dallied with his supposed obligations to her long +enough. Now, at least, after this outrage, he repeated to himself, he +was free. He was at liberty now--if indeed he had not always been--to +consider what he owed to himself; what to the woman he loved. + +He recalled the hot words he had spoken to the model earlier in the +afternoon when the anger of discovery was fresh upon him, and he felt a +pang of self-reproach. He could not but know how poignant to Ninitta +must be the grief of giving him up, although he assured himself that in +the long years of separation she must have become accustomed to live +without him, and that her grief would be rather fancied than real. Yet +he was too tender-hearted to be wholly at ease after all his reasoning. +He at last started out to find Ninitta, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps +to cast her off forever. At least to come to some definite conclusion +of their doubtful relations. + +But Ninitta was not to be found. She was not in her attic; nor did she +return that night, nor the next day, nor yet the following; and it was +to tell of the model's disappearance, and to ask aid in tracing her, +that Herman had wished to speak to Helen at the Fenton's reception. + + + + +XXII. + +UPON A CHURCH BENCH. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--3. + + +Herman did not see Helen for several days after the reception, but she +came down to the studio Sunday afternoon to begin the repairing of her +mutilated bas-relief. The sculptor heard her step pass his door, and +felt a thrill at the sound for which he had longingly waited every +waking hour since he had heard Helen go out upon the night of Ninitta's +disappearance. + +He waited what seemed to him a long time, forcing himself to perform +certain trifling things needful in the studio, yet Mrs. Greyson had +only been able to get fairly to work before she heard his footstep, and +then his tap upon her door. + +He entered the studio almost hesitatingly, and after the usual +greetings stood looking gravely at the disfigured clay. + +"I began to think you were never coming to restore it," he remarked, +breaking at last the silence. + +"I could not bear to touch it," she returned, not caring to confess +that she had also wished to avoid him until time should have restored +his usual self-control. "But I determined yesterday to begin this +morning, only strangely enough I went to church for the first time +since I came from Europe." + +"Ah!" returned Herman smiling. "I often go to church when I am not too +busy." + +"I hardly supposed that a Pagan was guilty of going to any church where +he could not worship Pasht." + +"One can worship whatever deity he pleases in whatever temple, I +suppose," was his rejoinder. "I'm catholic in my tastes. I do not so +much mind what people worship, if they are only sincere about it." + +"It must be a great comfort to believe every thing, if one only could." + +"There is often danger," he observed, "that we assume it to be a +weakness to believe any thing." + +"It is, I'm afraid," replied she, turning her face from him and +seemingly intent upon her modeling. + +"At least we believe in work," Herman answered, "else we are not +artists. You certainly find joy and support in your art." + +"Yes," Helen said with a sigh; "but I fancy the joy of creation, great +as it is, can never be so satisfying to a woman as to a man. It is +humiliating to confess--or it is presumptuous to boast, I am not sure +which--but a woman is never so fully an artist as a man. He is in great +moments all artist; but a woman is never able to lay herself aside even +in her most imaginative moods." + +"I cannot think you wholly right," her master returned smiling; "but to +go back a little, at least faith is woman's peculiar province and +prerogative. We seem nowadays to pride ourselves upon being superior to +belief in any thing; but it is really a poor enough hypocrisy. If we +really believed nothing, should we ever give up a single selfish desire +or combat any impulse that seizes us. For my part, I am glad to find +men better than their professions. But this," he added with his genial +smile, "is more of a sermon, very likely, than you heard at church." + +"I at least agree with it better than the one I heard at church this +morning. The preacher patronized the Deity so that he shocked me." + +"That troubles me at church," Herman assented; "preachers are so +irreverent." + +Helen stepped back to observe the effects of the work she was doing. + +"Do you think," she ventured, "that it would be possible for me to +induce Ninitta to pose again for the May? If I told her that I am not +angry, that I understand, and that----" + +"But Ninitta is gone!" exclaimed the sculptor, suddenly recalled to +present difficulties. "I have not been able to find her since the day +she did this." + +"Gone!" echoed Helen in dismay; "and you cannot find her?" + +Herman related in detail the steps he had taken to trace Ninitta, all +of which had thus far proved unavailing. He had endeavored to avoid +publicity, but he already began to fear that it would be necessary to +call detectives to his aid. + +"Not yet," Helen said. "Let me try first. Have you seen Mr. Fenton?" + +"No; why? I have been very cautious. I have told nobody but Fred +Rangely." + +Helen reflected a moment. Her woman's instinct told her that it was not +likely Ninitta would put any great distance between herself and the +sculptor. The model could have but few acquaintances in the city, and +as she would need support it seemed probable she might try posing for +some of the artists. As this thought crossed her mind, Helen remembered +that Ninitta had promised to pose for Fenton when no longer wanted for +the has-relief. It was therefore possible that Fenton might know +something of the whereabouts of the missing girl; and in any case Helen +had been so used to consulting the artist in any perplexity, that it +was but natural for her thoughts to turn to him now. + +"Let me try," she repeated. "It will be less likely to excite talk if I +look for her; she was my model. Trust the search to me for a day or +two." + +He was only too glad to do so; glad to be released from the burden of +anxiety, as by virtue of some subtle faith in Mrs. Greyson he was; glad +of any thing in which he might obey her; glad above all of any bond of +common interest which might draw them nearer to each other, even if it +were search for the woman who stood between them. + +On her way homeward Helen went into Studio Building, but before she had +climbed half way to Fenton's room, she encountered Dr. Ashton. + +"It is of no use," was his greeting. "He isn't in. His wife has +probably taken him to church." + +"He was at church this morning," Helen answered, putting her hand into +the one Dr. Ashton extended. "I saw him." + +"Did you go to church? What a lark." + +"It was rather a lark," she assented; "only I got wretchedly blue +before the service was done." + +"What church was it? Mrs. Fenton looks as if she'd poise dizzily on +high church altitudes like the angel on St. Angelo." + +"So she does; she goes to the Nativity." + +"How did Arthur look?" + +"Amused at first; then bored; then cross; and finally, when the sermon +was well under way, indignant." + +"And his wife?" + +"His wife, Will," Helen said with a sudden enthusiasm, "looked like a +saint. She really believes all these fables. I wish I did." + +"It will be some fun to watch Arthur's conversion and backsliding," Dr. +Ashton observed, "if he really gets far enough along to be able to +backslide. Where are you going?" + +"To see Arthur. I have an errand." + +"Do you object to my walking with you?" he asked with a deference rare +enough to attract her notice. + +The sun was setting, and the trees on the Common, as yet showing but +faintest signs of coming buds, stood out against the saffron sky. The +long shadows stretched softly over the dull ground, while every slight +prominence was gilded and transfigured by the golden glow which flooded +from the west. The atmosphere had that peculiar brilliancy +characteristic of the season, while the cool and bracing air was full +of that champagne-like exhilaration in which lies at once the +fascination and the fatality of the New England climate. + +It was some time before either broke the silence. + +"How I wish," at length began Helen wistfully. + +"That shows," spoke her husband, as she left the sentence unfinished, +"that you are still under forty. When you have quadrupled your decades +you'll thank your stars for deliverances and ask for nothing more." + +"When I get to that stage, then," she returned, "I'll take poison." + +"Is that a hint?" + +"Life is bad enough now," she continued without heeding the +interruption, "but better a bitter savor than none at all." + +"You should devote yourself to cultivating the approval of conscience +as I do. I only do what I think to be right, you know." + +"But think right whatever you do." + +"Not quite that," returned the Doctor with a laugh, "but the approval +of my conscience--or of my reason, which stands in its place--is +necessary to my happiness, so I change my principles whenever my acts +don't accord with them." + +"So do a great many persons," she responded; "perhaps most of us, for +that matter, only we are seldom honest enough to own it." + +"By the way," queried her companion, as they approached her +destination, "how came Mrs. Fenton so quickly domesticated at the +Church of the Nativity?" + +"There is a young man there--a deacon or a monk; I never know these +high church terms; they are usually faded out pieces of Romanism--that +once wrote an article which enjoyed the honor of being interred in the +Princeton Review when her uncle was one of its editors." + +They reached the doorsteps and Dr. Ashton said good-by. Then he turned +back. + +"By the by," he said. "I walked up with you to make you invite me to +supper again. I enjoyed the last time very much." + +"Did you?" returned his wife, rather carelessly. "Come to-morrow--no, +not until Thursday night." + +"Very well. I am to dine here then, and I'll come and give you an +account of my visit." + + + + +XXIII. + +HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; i.--I. + + +The Fentons were just going to dinner when Helen arrived, and she was +persuaded to dine with them. She was not without some curiosity to +observe her friend in his new relations, and she also found herself +attracted by Edith, although the two women had apparently little in +common. + +The talk at dinner flowed on easily enough, Arthur conversing in the +strain which of old Helen had been pleased to call "amiable," and which +fretted her by being conventional and not wholly sincere. She liked the +artist best when he spoke without restraint, even though she might not +agree with his extravagances and often detected a trace of +artificiality in his clever epigrams. It seemed to her that the whole +tendency of Edith's influence upon her husband was towards restraint, +yet she could not be sure whether the ultimate result upon Fenton's +character might not be beneficial. + +"It depends upon Arthur himself," Helen mused. "If he is strong enough +to endure the struggle of adapting his honest belief to her honest +belief, he will be the better for it. I hope his love of ease will not +make him evade the difficulty. It never used to occur to me how little +I really know Arthur, so that I cannot tell how this will be." + +When the host was enjoying his after dinner cigar, which by especial +indulgence upon the part of Edith he was allowed to smoke in the +parlor, Helen disclosed the object of her visit. + +"Do you remember," she asked, "that model who posed for my May, and was +to come to you next week?" + +"Ninitta? Of course. What of her?" + +"That is precisely what I wish to find out," she responded. "She has +changed her address, and I thought it possible you might know something +of her whereabouts." + +"I have not seen her since the morning when she came into your studio. +Doesn't Herman know?" + +"The truth is," Helen said slowly, weighing her words with regard to +their effect upon Edith, "that she has run away, and we do not know +what has become of her. She went off in a rage, and I am troubled about +her." + +"Is she the Italian you spoke of, Arthur?" interrupted Mrs. Fenton in +her soft voice. "What is she like?" + +"Yes; a black-haired, splendidly shaped girl with piercing black eyes." + +"I think I know where she is," Edith said quietly. + +"You?" the others asked in one breath. + +"You see," Mrs. Fenton explained, turning towards Helen, "I have made +rather a plunge into charity work. Of course I meant to do something, +but I hardly expected to begin quite so soon. But Mr. Candish is my +rector, and he came for me yesterday to go to an Italian family that +cannot speak English well. The children have just been put into our +schools, but they have not advanced very far as yet. Their teacher +asked Mr. Candish to do something for them; they are wretchedly poor. I +wish you could see the place, Mrs. Greyson. Eight people in a room not +so large as this, and such poverty as you could hardly imagine. Yet +these people had taken in another. The mother goes about selling fruit, +and she happened to speak to this girl that I think is Ninitta in her +own language one night. The girl had been wandering about in the cold, +not knowing where to go, and I suppose the sound of her own tongue +touched her heart. Poor thing; she would not speak a word to me. How +strange that I should chance to find her." + +"Thank heaven she is safe," was Helen's inward exclamation. Aloud she +said: "But what is she doing?" + +"Nothing," Edith answered. "She seems to have had a little money, so +that she can pay the family something, and she has helped to take care +of the children. They are Catholics, naturally, and not in Mr. +Candish's parish; but they do not seem to have much religion of any +kind, and keep clear of the priest for some reason." + +"My wife will know more of the North End in a month," Arthur observed +with an effort at good humor which did not wholly conceal from Helen a +trace of annoyance, "than I should in six years. I wonder she can bear +to go into such dirty places. Of course philanthropy is all very well, +but I'd rather take it after it has been disinfected." + +The bitterness in his tone jarred upon Helen. She felt a pang at his +evident dissatisfaction with his wife's views, his want of harmony with +his new surroundings. + +"Arthur must be disciplined," Mrs. Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he +once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, +he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, if from nothing else." + +"Happy!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily. "Does one ever expect to be +happy nowadays? Happiness went out of fashion with our grandmothers' +bonnets." + +"In this world," Edith answered, without any trace in her voice of the +reproof which Helen half expected, "perhaps you are right. The age is +too restless and skeptical for happiness here; but that makes me long +the more for it hereafter." + +"But even in a future life," returned Helen, "I can hardly expect to be +happy, since I shall still be myself." + +"Happiness," was Mrs. Fenton's reply, "is a question of harmony with +surroundings, is it not? And your surroundings in the other life may be +such that you cannot but be happy." + +"No more theology, please," interposed Arthur. "You forget, Edith, that +I have been to church to-day, and too much piety at once might impair +my spiritual digestion forever." + +A perception that the flippancy of his tone shocked his wife, made +Helen turn the conversation again to Ninitta, arranging to go with Mrs. +Fenton in the morning to find the missing girl. + +They fell into silence after this, the twilight deepening until only +the glow of the fire lighted the room. Edith went to the piano and +played a bit of Mozart, wandering off then into the hymn-tunes which +she loved and which were familiar in all orthodox homes of the last +generation: plaintive _Olmutz_ and stately _Geneva_, aspiring +_Amsterdam_ and resonant _St. Martin's_, placid _Boylston_ and grand +_Hamburg, Nuremburg, Benevento, Turner_ and _Old Hundred_; the tunes +of our fathers, the melodies which embody the spirit of the old time +New England Sabbath, a day heavy, constrained and narrow, it may be; +but, too, a day calm, unworldly and pure. + +Arthur's cigar was finished, and he had fallen into a deep reverie, +looking into the coals. He recalled his conversations with Helen before +his marriage. He wondered whether his acquiescence in the limitations +of his present condition, his yielding to his wife's social and +religious views, was an advance or a deterioration. These pious tunes +jarred upon his mood, and he was glad when his wife left the +instrument. His Bohemian instinct stirred within him, and taunted the +ease-loving quality of his nature which put him in subjection to that +which he believed no more now than in the days when he was the most +sharp-spoken of the Pagans. A wave of disgust and self-loathing swept +over him. He turned abruptly in the dusk toward Helen. + +"Sing to us," he said. "Edith has never heard you." + +But Helen had been moved by the melodies, which came to her as an echo +from her childhood. She understood the half-peremptory accent in +Arthur's voice to which she had so often yielded, but to which she +would not now submit. + +"No," she answered. "How can you ask me. My barbaric chant would be +wholly out of keeping here. Some other time I shall be glad to sing for +Mrs. Fenton; now I must go home." + + + + +XXIV. + +IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING. + I. Henry IV.; v.--I. + + +Notwithstanding her previous visit, Mrs. Fenton found it no easy matter +to guide Helen to the place where Ninitta had taken refuge. + +The poorer classes of foreigners in any city are led by similarity of +language and occupations to gather into neighborhoods according to +their nationality, and the Italians are especially clannish. The +fruit-venders and organ-grinders form separate colonies, each +distinguished by the peculiarities incident to the calling of its +inhabitants, the crooked courts in the fruit-sellers' neighborhood +being chiefly marked to outward observance by the number of two-wheeled +hand-carts which, out of business hours, are crowded together there. + +Ninitta was found in a room tolerably clean for that portion of the +city, the old fruit woman who was its mistress having retained more of +the tidiness of thrifty peasant ancestors than most of her class. One +room was made to accommodate the mother and seven children, and during +the absence of the former from home the premises were left in charge of +a girl just entering her teens, who, when Helen and Edith reached the +place, was engaged in preparing the family dinner of maccaroni. The +younger members of the family had just returned from school, and were +noisily clamoring for their share, and all together relating the +incidents of the day. + +Upon a bed in one corner lay the object of their search, her face +flushed, her hair disordered, her eyes wild and vacant. To all +appearances she was in a high fever, and she took no heed of Edith, who +approached the bed and spoke to her. At the sound of Mrs. Greyson's +voice, however, the sick girl gave a cry and raised herself into a +sitting posture. + +"No, no!" she exclaimed in Italian, excitedly, "I will not! I will +not!" + +Helen drew off her gloves and sat down upon the dingy bed beside +Ninitta, regarding her with pitying eyes. + +"You shall not," she answered, in the girl's own language. "You need do +nothing but what you choose." + +The soft tone seemed to calm Ninitta. She allowed Helen to arrange the +soiled and crumpled pillows, and yielded when her self-constituted +nurse wished her to lie down again. The latter procured a bowl of +water, and with her handkerchief bathed the sick girl's face, soothing +her with womanly touches which waked in Edith a new feeling of sympathy +and tenderness. Mrs. Greyson's white fingers, contrasting strongly with +the Italian's clear dark skin, smoothed the tangled hair from the hot +forehead, and all the while her rich, pure voice murmured comforting +words, of little meaning in themselves, perhaps, but sweet with the +sympathy and womanhood which spoke through them. + +Edith meanwhile was not idle. She applied herself to hushing the +boisterous children, and to bringing something like quiet out of the +tumult of the crowded room. She assisted the girl with her maccaroni, +gravely listening to the principles which governed its equitable +distribution, with her own hands giving the grimy little children the +share belonging to each. An air of comfort seemed to come over the +frowsy room after Edith had quietly set a chair straight here, picked +up something from the floor there, and arranged the ragged shade at the +window. Even the little Italians, half barbarians as they were, felt +the change, and were more subdued. + +Ninitta, too, was calmed and soothed, and, with Helen's cool hand upon +her hot brow, she sank presently into a drowse. + +"Mrs. Fenton," Helen whispered, fanning her sleeping patient, "Ninitta +cannot remain here. I must take her home with me. I think she had +better run the risk of being moved than to be ill in this crowded +room." + +"But," remonstrated Edith, somewhat aghast at this summary procedure, +"you do not even know what is the matter with her." + +"No," Helen returned lightly, "but I shall probably discover." + +"Not by finding it something contagious, I hope," her friend said, +laying her hand upon Mrs. Greyson's forehead with a slight, caressing +touch. + +"Can you get me a hack?" Helen asked of the girl who kept the house. + +But the girl had no idea how to obtain one of those vehicles, which she +had been accustomed to see driving about with a certain awe, but +without the hope of ever being able to do more than admire them from a +distance, unless, indeed, she should have the great good fortune of +going to a funeral, when perhaps she might even ride in one, as did +little Sally McMann of the next court, when her mother died. Mrs. +Fenton therefore went herself for the carriage, finding remonstrance in +vain to change her companion's decision. + +During her absence Ninitta awakened, and, while seeming more rational, +was less quiet than before. She repulsed her visitor with angry looks +and muttered defiance. Knowing perfectly well the cause of the girl's +agitation, Helen knew, also, that it was best to go directly to the +root of the matter, and she did so unshrinkingly. + +"You are wrong," she said in Ninitta's ear. "It is you he loves. You +are to go home with me because he wishes it." + +At first the sick girl seemed to gather no meaning from these words, +but as Helen repeated the assurance again and again, in different +phrases and with Herman's name, she became passive, as if she at least +caught the spirit if not the actual significance. + +Mrs. Fenton had some difficulty in finding a carriage, and by the time +she returned Ninitta had yielded herself submissively to Helen's +guidance. + +Mrs. Greyson saw that her charge was carefully protected against the +cold, a matter which the mildness of the day rendered easy, and, +supported by the two ladies, the model was able to walk down stairs to +the carriage. + +During the drive homeward Helen lay back thinking hotly, and flushed +with excitement. Ninitta sank into a doze, and Mrs. Fenton sat looking +at her friend with the air of one who has discovered in an acquaintance +characteristics before wholly unsuspected. She hesitated a little, and +then, mastering her shyness, she bent forward and kissed Helen's hand. + +The other submitted in silence. Indeed, the exaltation of her mood +seemed to lift her above her surroundings so that she felt a strange +remoteness from her companion. Yet she was conscious of a vague twinge +of annoyance at Edith's act, although she could neither have excused +nor defined the feeling. Mrs. Fenton not infrequently aroused in her a +curious mingling of attraction and repulsion; and it was under the +influence of the latter that she answered brusquely her friend's next +remark. + +"How did you quiet Ninitta?" Edith asked. + +"By telling her lies," returned Helen wearily and laconically. + +"What!" + +"She is in no condition to be dealt with rationally," continued Mrs. +Greyson, in a tone explanatory, but in no way defensive, "so I said +whatever would soothe her." + +Edith sat in silent dismay. Apparently the woman before her, by whose +generous self-forgetfulness she had been touched, was perfectly +untroubled by the idea of speaking a falsehood, a state of mind so +utterly beyond Edith's experience as to be incomprehensible to her. She +could not bring herself to remonstrate, but it pained her that such +philanthropy should be stained by what she considered so wrong. + +Mrs. Fenton was perhaps equally mistaken in her opinion of Helen's +regard for truth and of her philanthropy. Mrs. Greyson had a deep +repugnance to falsehood, and Arthur Fenton had often good-humoredly +jeered at what he called her Puritanic scrupulousness in this respect. +On an occasion such as at present, however, the use of an untruth would +cause her not even a second thought, her reason so strongly supporting +her course as even to overcome her instincts; a fact which a moralist +might deplore but which still remains a fact. + +Her philanthropy, upon the other hand, although seeming to Edith so +disinterested, was largely instigated by a desire to aid Grant Herman. +Just what she wished or expected him to do, she could not have told, +her actions being no more regulated by strict logic than those of most +women; but she felt that it was the office of friendship to see, if +possible, that no harm came to the Italian through the jealousy which +both herself and Herman knew to be but too well founded. She determined +to take Ninitta home and do for her all that was necessary, in order +that the sculptor be spared the remorse which would pursue him if harm +came to his old betrothed. She was not without a secret feeling, +moreover, scarcely acknowledged to herself, that she owed some +reparation to the girl whose lover's heart she had won, no matter how +undesignedly. + +Reaching home, she got Ninitta to bed and sent for Dr. Ashton. Then she +dispatched a note to Grant Herman, saying: + +"Ninitta is with me; give yourself no uneasiness." + + + + +XXV. + +THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME. + +Measure for Measure; iv.--4. + + +Ninitta's illness proved after all very slight. So slight, indeed, that +Dr. Ashton, calling in on his way to dine with the Fentons Thursday +evening, found her gone. She had insisted upon returning to her attic, +although Helen had not allowed her to depart without promising not to +abscond a second time. + +Ninitta was grateful to Mrs. Greyson with all the ardor of her +passionate southern heart. She did not, it is true, understand the +relations between Herman and Helen, but even her jealousy was lost in +the gratitude she felt for the beautiful woman who had cared for her, +and it is not unlikely saved her from a dangerous illness. It did not +seem possible to the undisciplined Italian, versed only in crude, +simple emotions, that a woman who was her rival could treat her with +tenderness. She accepted Helen's kindness as indisputable proof that +the latter did not love the sculptor, a conclusion which the premises +scarcely warranted. She volunteered to pose again, and Mrs. Greyson, +thinking it well to keep the girl under her influence, and desiring a +return to at least the semblance of the peaceful existence preceding +the stormy episode just ended, eagerly accepted this offer, only +stipulating that the model should undertake nothing until she was +really well able. + +"I shall come back to supper," Dr. Ashton said, as he left his wife. "I +have half a mind not to go to Fenton's; only it amuses me to watch the +fellow's degeneration." + +"It never amuses me to watch any degradation," she returned gravely. +"How do you know he is degenerating? If you mean by following his wife, +why, they may be right after all, and what we call superstition the +veriest truth." + +"Of course," answered he. "I never pretended to administer the +exclusive mysteries of truth; but it is always a degradation to yield +to personal influence at the expense of conviction. Arthur is as much +of a heathen to-day as he ever was, only he is too fond of comfort to +have the courage of his opinions." + +Helen sighed. + +"Truth to me," she said thoughtfully, "is whatever one sincerely +believes; I cannot conceive of any other standard. One man's truth is +often another's falsehood." + +"You are as dull as a preface to-night, Helen; what carking care is +gnawing at your vitals?" + +"Nothing in particular. A certain melancholy is befitting a widow, you +know, and that's what I am supposed to be." + +"On the contrary there is a certain vivacity about the word widow to my +mind." + +"Your experience has been wider than mine. I am aware that I am too +much given to vast moral reflections, but you provoke them." + +"I am sorry to provoke you," he said gayly. "Forgive me before supper +time; who knows what rich experiences I may have between now and then. +Good-by." + +As he walked toward his appointment, could Dr. Ashton's vision have +reached to the house whither he was going, he would have seen Arthur +Fenton and his wife sitting together before an open fire awaiting their +guest. The artist was showing Edith a portfolio of sketches by foreign +painters, which he had brought from his studio. + +"What a strange uncanny thing this is," he remarked, holding one up. +"It is just like Frontier; I never saw any thing more characteristic. I +wonder you got so few of his tricks, Edith, while you studied with +him." + +"He always repelled me. I was afraid of him. Where did you get this +sketch?" + +"Dr. Ashton gave it to me." + +"Dr. Ashton!" + +"Yes; when he was in Paris, both he and his wife were intimate with +Frontier. Or at least Will was." + +"Oh, Arthur!" + +She leaned forward in her chair, her always pale face assuming a new +pallor. Laying her hand upon her husband's, she asked in a quick, +excited manner: + +"Do you know how Frontier died?" + +"I know he died suddenly; now you speak of it, I have an idea it was a +case of _felo de se_. You know I was in Munich at the time." + +"Arthur," Edith said earnestly, "I have never told even you; but I saw +Frontier die. I had a pass-key to his studio, and his private rooms +were just behind it. That night I went in on my way from dinner--Uncle +Peter and I had been dining together, and I left him at the door with +the carriage--after a study I'd forgotten. We were going to Rome the +next morning, and I didn't want to leave it. The picture was at the +further end of the studio, and as I went down the room I heard voices +and saw that Frontier's door was open. He sat at a table with a tiny +wine-glass in his hand. A man who stood back to me said, just as I came +within hearing: 'It is none of my affair, and I shall not interfere; +but you'll allow me to advise you not to be rash.' I could not hear +Frontier's answer, partly because I paid no attention, of course never +suspecting the truth. But as I went towards my easel, Frontier, hearing +the noise, I suppose, and afraid of being interrupted, caught up the +glass and drank what was in it. The other man sprang forward just in +time to catch him as he fell back, and it suddenly came over me that he +was taking poison. I cried out and ran into the room, but it seemed +only an instant before it vas all over. Oh, it was terrible, Arthur, +terrible!" + +She covered her agitated face with her hands, as if to shut out the +vision which rose before her. Her husband sat in silent astonishment, a +conviction growing in his mind of whom the other witness of Frontier's +death must have been. + +"Arthur," Edith broke out suddenly, "that man was no better than a +murderer. He let Frontier kill himself. When I cried out, 'Oh, why +didn't you stop him!' he said as coolly as if I had asked the most +trivial question, 'Why should I? What right had I to interfere?' It was +terrible! He seemed to me a perfect fiend!" + +"It was--who was it?" demanded her husband, a name almost escaping him +in his excitement. + +"It was Dr. Ashton; the man who is coming to sit down at your table +to-night. Arthur, I cannot meet him! I knew when he came to our +reception that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where. There +is his ring now. Let me get by you!" + +"But where are you going?" Fenton asked in amazement. + +"To my room. Any where to get out of his way." + +"But what shall I tell him?" + +"The truth; that I will not sit down to eat with a murderer." + +She vanished from the room, leaving her husband alone. Dr. Ashton's +step was already upon the stair, and however keenly Mrs. Fenton might +feel the wickedness of the Doctor in not preventing Frontier's +self-destruction, the action was too strictly in accord with Arthur's +own views to allow of his condemning it. His friend found him in a +state of confusion which instantly connected itself in the guest's mind +with the non-appearance of Edith, an impression which was strengthened +by the lameness of the excuses tendered for her absence. Dr. Ashton not +unnaturally concluded that he had just escaped stumbling upon a family +quarrel. He accepted whatever his host chose to say, and the two +proceeded rather gloomily to dinner. + +In Arthur's mind there sprang an irritation against both his wife and +his friend. His instincts were all protective, that term including +comfort as well as self-preservation. He was intensely annoyed at his +wife's attitude, and began to vent his spleen in cynical speeches, +which since his marriage had been rare with him. + +"Christian grace," he declared, "is exactly like milk; excellent and +nourishing while it is fresh, but hard to get pure, and even then sure +to sour." + +"Say something more original if you are cross, Arthur," observed his +friend good humoredly. "What is the matter? Is it a new rug or a +Japanese bronze you are dying for?" + +"Hang rugs and bronzes," retorted Arthur, with a vicious determination +to be ill-natured. "If I can get the necessities of life, I am lucky." + +"Nonsense," was the reply. "It isn't that. The lack of the necessities +of life makes a man sad; it is the lack of luxuries that makes him +cynical." + +Dr. Ashton was perfectly right in his inward comment that Fenton was +secretly regretting his marriage. This was the thought that filled +Arthur's mind. It was true he had had no absolute disagreement with his +wife, although it is not impossible that it might have come to this, +had a delay in the guest's arrival allowed time. But it filled the +husband with an unreasoning rage that Edith presumed to establish so +strict a code of morals. He felt that her position as his wife demanded +more conformity to his standards. Why need she trouble herself about +that which did not concern her, and sit in such lofty judgment upon the +morals of her neighbors? Did she propose keeping Dr. Ashton's +conscience as well as her own--and his? Certainly those whom the +husband found worthy his friendship it ill became the wife to +stigmatize and avoid. He sat moodily tearing his fish in pieces instead +of eating; for the moment wholly forgetting his duty as host. + +"If you'll pardon my mentioning it," Dr. Ashton said at length, "you +are about as cheerful company as a death's head. You are so melancholy +that I am tempted to fling in your face one of my old epigrams; that +love is a gay young bachelor who can never be persuaded to marry and +settle down." + +The other laughed and made an effort to shake off his gloom; but with +so little success that his guest resolved to escape at the earliest +moment possible. Something in Fenton's forced talk, however, attracted +Dr. Ashton's attention. + +"My wife was a pupil of Frontier." + +The simple phrase, which had escaped Arthur's lips because it had been +in his mind not to allude to this fact, might have gone unnoticed had +not the speaker himself so strongly felt the shock of disclosure as to +show sudden confusion. The whole matter was at once clear to Dr. +Ashton, who having recognized Edith at the reception, had been prepared +for identification in his own turn. + +"So that," he observed calmly, "is the reason Mrs. Fenton does not dine +with us to-night. I knew she was sure to recognize me sooner or later; +but as I had no motive for concealing this matter, on the other hand I +had no reason for recalling so unpleasant a circumstance to her mind." + +There was a pause of a moment, and then the Doctor continued: + +"I think Frontier was rather foolish. I told him so. A charming little +Hungarian girl of whom he was fond, had left him to follow the fortunes +of a Polish Count, or something of the sort. I do not see why a man +should kill himself for so trifling a thing as a woman; but if he chose +to, I am not one of those officious persons who feel justified in +interfering with any private act they don't happen to approve. I +certainly should resent such impertinent intrusion into my own +affairs." + +"And I," assented Arthur doggedly; "but my wife----" + +"Certainly; I understand. Mrs. Fenton says hard things of me because I +would not rob poor Frontier of what little comfort he could get from +dying. Very well; I will not offend her by my presence. Only she is +setting herself a hard task in attempting to treat people according to +their conservatism. In these days the sheep and goats have come to be +so much alike in appearance, that I scarcely see how a mere mortal is +to distinguish between them. My own case I settle for her by avoiding +her house." + +"But this is my house," protested Arthur, intensely chagrined. + +"No," his guest replied, still smiling and moving toward the door. "It +is the nest you have built for your love and your--regeneration! Good +night." + + + + +XXVI. + +THERE BEGINS CONFUSION. + I Henry VI.; iv.--i. + + +Alone in her own room, Edith relieved her overwrought feelings by a +burst of tears, brief, indeed, but bitter. Like her husband, she felt +that this incident, although not assuming the guise of a quarrel, was +an opening wedge in the unity of their affection. Unlike Arthur, +however, she thought of it with self-reproach and misgiving. She did +not for an instant consider the possibility of having taken a different +position in regard to Dr. Ashton, yet in a womanly, illogical way, she +felt that she should have learned her husband's wishes before so +vehemently declaring her own views. + +She heard the artist and his guest go in to dinner, and the thought +flashed upon her that this was the first time her husband had dined +without her since their marriage. She wondered if he remembered it, +and, remembering, regretted. She longed for companionship, for some +friend into whose sympathetic ear she could pour her story, from whom +she might ask advice. She reflected sadly how far she was removed from +her intimate friends. Of her new acquaintances many had been most kind +to her, but towards none of them, not even to her relatives, had she +been so strongly drawn as to wish now to go to them for confidence and +sympathy; unless, came a second thought, it were Mrs. Greyson. She was +a widow, Edith reflected, and had evidently suffered much, while the +strength of her character was evident from her dealing with the Italian +girl. It would be no disloyalty to go to her; there had been no words +spoken between husband and wife which could not be told a friend, and +Edith felt that she needed the advice of a woman more versed in the +intricacies of life than herself. + +She dressed herself for walking, and slipped noiselessly out of the +house. + +Mrs. Greyson was at dinner, and was naturally surprised at seeing her +caller, but she had both too much tact and too much breeding to ask +explanations. + +"I do hope you have not dined," she said. "I am so much alone that it +is a perfect delight to me to have company. My dinner is a little like +a picnic, but if you will only consider how great a favor you are doing +me by sharing it, the consciousness of philanthropy ought to make it +palatable." + +Neither lady mentioned Arthur, although his name was uppermost in the +thoughts of both. They sat down together in Helen's tiny dining-room, +and served by her only maid, had a charming meal. The hostess exerted +herself to entertain her guest, wisely judging that what Edith said in +calmness she would be far less likely to regret than words uttered in +the unguarded moments of her excitement. She told Mrs. Fenton stories +of her studio life both in Boston and abroad, she led Edith on to speak +of her own travels and experiences, until the latter almost forgot that +she was dining in one house and her husband in another. It was not +until the coffee was reached, coffee made as only Helen could make it, +that the subject of the visit was really broached. + +"How is Mr. Fenton?" Helen asked deliberately, believing the time had +come for such a question. + +The face of the other fell. She experienced a pang at the consciousness +of having been gay and happy, forgetful of her husband and her trouble. + +"He is well," she answered falteringly. + +"Why did you not bring him with you?" continued Mrs. Greyson lightly, +yet with a secret determination to know the cause of her guest's +evident disturbance. + +"He did not know I was coming," Edith responded in a low voice. "That +is what I came to talk about. I thought you might understand; but it +involves a third person, and perhaps I ought not to tell you. I am +sure, though," she went on, gaining confidence now that the ice was +broken, "that I can trust you. A friend of Arthur's came to dine +to-night, and just as the door-bell rang, I found him to be the man I +once saw commit murder in Paris." + +"Murder!" exclaimed Helen, turning white. "Commit murder?" + +"Consent to it," corrected Edith, unconsciously a little pleased to +have produced so great an effect upon her usually self-possessed +friend. "He looked on while Frontier took poison, without trying to +prevent him." + +"But that," Mrs. Greyson said slowly, "is hardly the same thing as +murder." + +"It is quite as bad," Edith protested earnestly. "It makes me shudder +to think of his dining alone with Arthur at this moment. Who knows what +might happen!" + +"Nothing tragic, I think," Helen replied smiling. "He does not go about +with pistols in his belt, I suppose.' + +"It is awful to me," Edith continued, with increasing excitement, too +much stirred to notice the sarcasm. "I told Arthur I could not sit down +with a murderer, and just at that moment we heard his step, and I ran +away upstairs; and then I felt dreadfully, and I came to you." + +"I thank you for your confidence. But what do you mean to do? What will +Arthur tell him?" + +"The truth, I hope." + +"He is scarcely likely to say to the guest he has himself invited that +you think him a murderer," answered her friend, smiling again, "and I +am not sure that he would even look at this quite so severely as you +do." + +"How else can he look at it?" demanded Edith. "How else can any one +look at it? Isn't it murder to take human life, and if one does not +prevent suicide when he might, isn't it the same as if he did it +himself?" + +"We will not get into a discussion," Helen replied gently. "I feel +about it as you do; though I believe very differently. But I see +perfectly well how a man might be strictly honest in thinking that it +was the privilege of any human being to lay aside his life when he is +weary of it; and I do not presume to condemn others for feeling what I +only think I believe." + +"Think you believe!" cried the other in horror. "You do not think you +believe that murder is right?" + +"Assuredly not; but as there are so many related points upon which we +do not agree, would it not be better to talk of this particular case +than of general belief?" + +"But it is impossible for any one to believe as you say," persisted +Edith; "simply impossible. No one can believe that wrong is right." + +"But each has his own standard." + +Against this Edith protested, but Helen returned no answer. She +regretted being involved in such a debate, and resolved to let the +discussion go no further. They sat in silence a moment, and then Edith +again spoke. + +"I do not know what to do," she said. "Of course Arthur cannot know +that man any longer. You were in Paris at the time Frontier died, were +you not? Did you ever know----" + +She broke off suddenly, remembering that she had not intended +disclosing the name of her guest. + +"Dr. Ashton?" Helen returned, fixing her eyes upon her companion, and +unconsciously speaking with a deliberation which gave especial weight +to her words. "Yes; I know him. We went to Paris together." + +"Together! Was he a friend of your husband? How did you know whom I +meant?" + +There was no perceptible pause before Helen answered; but meanwhile she +determined to throw aside all concealment. She could no longer stand +before Arthur Fenton's wife with the humiliation of even a tacit +deception between them. She felt a spirit of defiance rising within +her. Who was this woman that she assumed the right to judge them all by +standards for whose narrowness only contempt was possible! At least she +would rise above all conventional prejudices, and no longer tacitly +ask, as by silence she had done, exemption from the harsh judgments of +Mrs. Fenton's creed. + +Helen was too womanly not to shrink from this disclosure, and she had +been too thoroughly educated in the faith by which Edith lived not to +understand just how her life would appear seen through the latter's +belief. Disconnected with a question relating to the marriage relation +and by implication casting reflection upon her delicacy and even purity +of life as a woman separated from her lawful husband, Helen could have +met with dispassionate reasoning whatever assault Edith made upon her. +This point was too vital, it touched too closely the core of her +woman's nature, and although she retained perfectly her self-control, +there was a pulse of passion in her voice when she spoke. + +"Dr. Ashton," she said unflinchingly, "is my husband." + +"What?" cried Edith. + +"We have not found it convenient to live together," Helen continued, +with increasing calmness, a faint tinge of contempt creeping into her +voice, "and so since my return from Europe I have taken my mother's +name to avoid gossip. Dr. Ashton and I are very good friends still." + +"And did Mr. Fenton know this?" asked the other, very pale. + +"Certainly; although you understand that it is not a matter which we +discuss with the world at large. I pass, I believe, as a widow; though +I have never done or said any thing to give color to that idea." + +It is doubtful if Helen fully comprehended the effect of these words +upon her guest. Every fiber of Edith's being tingled. All her most +sacred principles seemed outraged. She in some remote way felt, +moreover, as if to hear without protest so lax notions of the +responsibilities of marriage was to stain her womanhood and dim the +luster of her modesty. + +"How dared he introduce you to me?" she cried. "You are the wife of a +murderer and you defend his crime; you pretend to be a widow, you +ignore your marriage----" + +"Stop," the hostess said with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. +Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in +seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. +You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have +kept it from your knowledge." + +But Edith made her no answer. She was too much overwhelmed by the +various emotions which the disclosure of the evening had aroused. + +Edith was, from Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but +the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's +vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity +arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and +doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by +its jar the most ordinary affairs of life. + +Edith was pure, high minded, simple souled, and for the rest she was +honest and earnest. Her creeds were vitalized by the warm fervor with +which she clung to them, and what more could be demanded of her? + +She quitted the dining-room, and soon Helen heard the outer door close +behind her. The night gathered, and the lonely woman left behind sat +long in sad reverie, until the door was again opened to admit Dr. +Ashton. + + + + +XXVII. + +WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE. + Hamlet; i.--2. + + +Dr. Ashton came in too full of his own interview with Arthur to notice +particularly if his wife showed signs of agitation. + +"My dear," he said, throwing himself into a chair, "it is at once one +of the latest and the wisest of my reflections that you had better +consider a newly married man as an entire stranger and form his +acquaintance quite from the foundation, wholly unbiased by any notion +you had of him as a bachelor." + +"His wife," responded Helen quietly, "has been dining with me, so I +understand something of the situation. But how did Arthur behave?" + +"Like any husband who does not care to quarrel with his wife even when +he disapproves of her. It is upon that principle that matrimonial +felicity depends. Do you say Mrs. Fenton has been here?" + +"Yes; she came to me for sympathy and I administered it by telling her +that I am your wife." + +"The devil! I beg your pardon; but, Helen, it was precisely because I +knew she was sure to remember this Frontier scrape that I wanted her +not to know. She will be very hard on you." + +"Christianity is always hard," returned she; "but what difference does +it make; it was only a question of time. She is sweet and pure and +good, Will, but her religion holds her in bands stronger than steel. I +couldn't long keep step with one in chains. It might as well come now +as any time." + +Her husband looked at her with evident interest not unmixed with +admiration. + +"She provokes me to do and to say childish things," Helen continued, +"just to shock her. I told her bluntly the other day that I had been +telling a falsehood, and she had the impertinence to look shocked. I am +not sure that I did not go so far as to say I 'lied,' a word that +hardly holds the place in English that it did in the good days of Mrs. +Opie. She would have been reconciled if I had said I told what I hoped +was true." + +"I should have told her," laughed Dr. Ashton, "that I only used truth +as the Egyptians used straw in bricks, the smallest possible quantity +that will hold the rest together." + +"I cannot see why Arthur married her," Helen said musingly. + +"Oh, as to that, an idle man will fall in love with any pretty woman +who will snub him." + +"But Arthur isn't idle, and she doesn't snub him." + +"Very well; he married her because he fell in love for no reason but +the weakness of our sex." + +"Love seems generally to be regarded by the masculine mind in the light +of a weakness." + +"Isn't it?" her husband returned. "Love is the condition of desiring +the impossible, and if that is not a weakness, what becomes of logic?" + +"I am tired of logic," she said, rising abruptly. "I am tired of every +thing. Let us have supper. I want a glass of wine. I am sure I tried to +be kind to Mrs. Fenton. I would have helped her if I could; but how +could I assist her unless she chose to let me, and that, too, knowing +who I am." + +"I never knew you to be other than kind," was the grave reply, which +brought to Helen's cheek a faint flush of pleasure. + +The servant came in with supper, and the slender glasses were filled +with Rhine wine. + +"I could not help thinking," Dr. Ashton said, lifting his glass,--"I +drink to your very good health, my dear--I could not help thinking of +my wedding gift to Arthur, that he asked me for it, I mean." + +"I thought of it, too, when his wife told me the story. It is well she +does not know that of you." + +"Oh, it wouldn't matter," he said carelessly. "She couldn't feel a +greater horror of me than she does already. Do you see the mark of Cain +on my forehead, Helen?" + +"Isn't it droll," she returned, with a smile half pensive, half +humorous, "to feel ourselves suddenly tried by new standards and found +so wanting. I am not sure but dramatic propriety demands that I should +poison Mrs. Fenton. I have that vial, you know." + +"Did you notice the inscription on the vial?" + +"No; is there one?" + +"See for yourself," he answered, refilling his glass. + +She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco +case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and +distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her +place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, +shining upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue +dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her +delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within +these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more +truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him +through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in +speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in +his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He +had determined to speak his passion, but as he looked at his wife +sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay +between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the +tiny cut-glass vial from its velvet bed. + +"How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily +lifting it to her nostrils. + +"Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly. + +"Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off. + +"It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely +stopped." + +She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the glass. + +"'Death foils the gods,'" she read. "Is it one of your own +wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to +Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she +has lost." + +"What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is +pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd +sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant +body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned +reprobate." + +"Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of +destroying your peace of mind." + +"I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind +the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands." + +"Yes," assented the other, "himself." + +She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-glass vial. + +"How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We +become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the +shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the +theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness." + +"That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it +ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of +cheese." + +"There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing +over the table. + +"Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that +fact. "It is of no consequence." + +"Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it." + +She restored the vial to its place, laying the closed case by her +plate, and left the room. The instant the door closed behind her, Dr. +Ashton reached across the table, possessed himself of the vial, +returning the case to its former position. His wife turned just outside +the door, and came back with a meaning smile to take up the empty case +and lock it again in the cabinet. + +"I cannot trust you," she remarked with a smile; "you are too eager to +foil the gods." + +He smiled in return, holding his wine-glass up to the light. + +"There is more where that came from," he said. "You forget my +profession." + +"Of what are you musing so intently?" Helen queried, half an hour +later, while, the supper being ended, her husband was enjoying his +cigar. + +"Of two things which I have to communicate. One is a folly and the +other--or perhaps I should say each--is a misfortune." + +"The folly," returned she, "I forgive; the misfortune I regret. What +are they?" "I am glad you forgive the folly. That gives me boldness to +tell it. I have fallen in love." + +"You, Will! With whom?" + +"That is the madness of it. With my wife." + +"Will!" + +"It is the truth," he went on, half whimsically, but with a certain +ring of earnestness in his tone. "I acknowledge the madness, the poor +taste of a man's falling in love with his own wife, but the fact +stubbornly remains. I have been in love with you for a long time, but I +stood back for Arthur like a good fellow." + +"I never was in love with Arthur," she interrupted. + +"It is no matter," he continued. "The question is, can't you get up a +grain of grace for me, old lady?" + +He leaned over the table, his dark eyes shining as she had never seen +them before. She was fascinated by his gaze; she felt as if the ground +were slipping from beneath her feet, and as though he were casting upon +her an evil spell. A wave of despair swept over her. Must she again +submit to his power; were the old days of bitter bondage to return; was +she nothing but a puppet to his will? + +In this extremity a memory saved her. Unable to withdraw her gaze from +her husband's face, there came to her suddenly the look in the eyes of +Grant Herman that day when he told her his love. The blood surged to +her cheeks, but her calmness returned. + +"It is of no use, Will," she said with gentle firmness. "All that is +past forever between us. We had better not speak of it," she added +wistfully. "I have so few friends that I cannot bear to lose any one of +them." + +"My folly is then my misfortune," he responded, with no appearance of +diminished good humor. "It is the pleasure of the gods to torment me; I +suppose it amuses them. The old Romans were only aping them in their +blood-thirsty sports, and I fancy that is the secret of their +deification, for nothing seems so much to the liking of the gods as to +torment humanity." + +The evident endeavor which the speaker made to appear flippant and at +his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without +fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled +man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She +turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-glass. +Her own life had been too sad for her not to feel some emotion at his +words. She strove to repress the thoughts which made her bosom swell +and heave, yet it was from them her words came when she broke the +silence. + +"It is bitterest to find one's self mistaken. To find that our gods are +only clay like the rest of humanity. I could forgive a friend for +neglect, abuse or any cruelty; but I could never forgive him for +falling below my ideal of him." + +"You do not mean me," he returned placidly, "for of me you never had an +ideal; but waiving that for a moment, I should like to tell you of my +second misfortune--if it isn't to be reckoned a blessing." + +She looked at him without speaking. If this disclosure were but a +repetition in varied form of the other, she had no wish to help him put +it into words. Yet even as this thought passed through her mind, she +fancied she had detected in his tone some new gravity. + +"I've discovered," continued Dr. Ashton, with the same light manner he +had used throughout the interview, "that I have a cancer gayly but with +grim persistency developing under my arm." + +"Oh, Will," Helen cried, clasping her hands, "you are not in earnest!" + +"I assure you it is a very earnest matter with me, and has been for +some time. I might have an operation, I suppose, if it were worth +while; though it is so near the heart that it would be uncomfortably +risky." + +Helen became suddenly calm. The color faded slowly from her cheeks, and +her husband, watching her narrowly, saw her beautiful lips assume a new +expression of firmness and determination. She unconsciously lifted her +head into a more erect carnage. Her eyes were moist and full of +feeling. Slowly in her mind formed a resolve, and with a full knowledge +of the renunciation of self which it involved, she called up all the +nobility of her soul to aid her in living up to it. Creeds were little +to this woman, yet her life was formed upon the principles which give +to creeds their stability, and by which the moral is removed from the +animal. + +"Will," she at length said, slowly and gravely, "could it not be +arranged for me to live with you? You did not tell me you were fond of +me without having thought out the possibilities." + +"I should have hesitated to ask so much," was his reply, "even of your +love; I shall certainly not take it of your pity." + +"My pity?" she murmured, not raising her eyes. "What do you mean?" + +"You know. You cannot think me so dull as not to see that your proffer +comes not from affection, but from generosity. I thank you, but I will +accept no sacrifices." + +He rose as he spoke, and put out his hand. + +"I must be going," he said in an indifferent tone. "I have letters to +write that must be mailed by midnight. I am not more than half as bad, +Helen, as you have always persisted in thinking. I never made very +profound pretensions, but I've treated every body squarely from my own +point of view. If they have regarded my blessings as curses, it wasn't +my fault, and I am not sufficiently hypocritical to pretend that I +think it was. Good night." + +He gave her hand a warmer and more lingering pressure than usual. + +"I've had a very pleasant evening," he added, "despite the admixture of +truth. Young people don't like any bitters, but we old, shattered +wrecks need a dash of it in the wine of life to help digestion. Good +night." + + + + +XXVIII. + +LIKE COVERED FIRE. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--I. + + +That night marked an epoch in the married life of Arthur and Edith +Fenton. + +The results of matrimony upon character are for the most part slow and +hardly perceptible, yet even so not without certain well-defined stages +by which their progression forces itself into recognition; and in +fervid temperaments like that of the artist, any change is sure to be +rapid, and marked by sharp and sudden crises. + +Edith returned from Helen with her soul in a tumult. Grant Herman had +described more than her face when he applied to her the epithet +nun-like. It was a source of perpetual wonderment to many of her +friends that such a girl could be so strongly attracted by Arthur +Fenton; but those who knew his marvelous flexibility, the unconscious +hypocrisy with which he adapted himself to any nature with which he +came in contact, and on the other hand his fascinating manner, at once +brilliant and sympathetic, felt Edith's love to be the perfectly +natural consequence. She believed him to be what she wished, and he, +without conscious deceit, became for the time being what she believed +him to be. + +It was a theory of Dr. Ashton's that what Arthur Fenton became was so +purely a question of environment as to leave the artist all but +irresponsible. This fatalistic view he had laid before his wife with +some detail, at once explaining and defending his position. + +"If a chameleon is put upon a black tree," he said on one occasion when +the matter was under discussion, "you have really no right to blame him +for becoming black too; it is simply his nature. If Arthur is like that +it isn't his fault. He wasn't consulted, I fancy, about how he should +be made at all. He is self-indulgent, and if a point hurts him he +glides away from it. He cannot help it." + +"There is something in what you say," Helen had reluctantly assented, +"but I think you put it far too strongly." + +"Oh, very likely," was the careless reply. "His strongest instinct, +though, is to escape pain. We are none of us better than our +instincts." + +To such a decision as this, had she heard it, Edith, too religious to +acknowledge any thing tending towards fatalism, would not for a moment +have agreed; yet it embodied a truth destined to cause her deepest +sorrow, and which was gradually forcing itself upon her. Already, +although they had been married so few weeks, even her love-blinded eyes +could not but perceive much in her husband which shocked and pained +her. She had not considered deeply enough, never having had the +experience which would have taught her the need of considering, how +great was the gulf between her moral standpoint and that of her +betrothed. He had seemed so yielding that she had failed to perceive +that his compliances were merely outward, and left his mental attitude +unchanged. Now when it became necessary, as in every wedded life it +must sooner or later, for her to appeal to his ultimate moral belief, +she was startled to find nothing with which she was in sympathy. A +cynic--or, indeed, her husband himself--would have assured her that it +was, after all, a question of standards merely, and that difference of +judgment was natural and inevitable, and that measured by his own +convictions Arthur was quite well enough. Her answer to such a +proposition would have been that there was but one standard, and that +what differed from that were not moral principles at all, but excuses +for immoral obliquity. + +Outwardly, it is true, there was little in her husband's life of which +Edith could complain. He accompanied her to church, and if he quizzed +the preacher after returning home, she was ready to excuse this as the +natural result of a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. He allowed her +to do as she chose in the matter of charity work, and he even refrained +from going to his studio on Sunday, a sacrifice whose magnitude she had +no means of estimating, and which she therefore thought would be +continuous. It was when some ethical question arose between them that +Edith was disquieted, feeling sometimes as if she were looking into +black deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most +sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only +her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude +were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; +and Edith found argument impossible with one who denied her every +premise. + +His old acquaintances found in Arthur Fenton a change more subtle but +none the less distasteful. It was a trait of his nature to assume the +character he was half unconsciously acting, as a player may between the +scenes still feel the personality he is simulating upon the stage; and +there was about Fenton when he came in contact with the Pagans, a vague +air of remonstrance and disapproval, even when he was as bold as ever +in his own cynical utterances. + +"An expression of virtuous indignation isn't becoming in you, Fenton," +Rangely said to him one day. "Especially in a discussion which you +started yourself by the most shocking piece of wickedness I ever +heard." + +And among all the Pagans there existed a yet unspoken feeling that +Fenton was ceasing to be one of them. + +On returning from Helen's, Edith found her husband still engaged with +Dr. Ashton, but as soon as the latter had gone Arthur came to her room. + +"Well," he said, sinking leisurely into a chair. "Do you feel any +milder? Have you had your dinner?" + +"Yes," she returned, not leaving her seat on the opposite side of the +room. "I have been dining with Mrs. Ashton." + +"What!" cried Arthur, as if a bomb had exploded at his feet. Then he +sank back into his languid position. "So she has told you," he remarked +carelessly. + +"Yes, she has told me. Did you know, Arthur, when you brought us +together, that she was living under a false name, and under false +pretenses?" + +"I knew certainly," replied her husband with a coolness that marked his +inward irritation, "that her legal name was Ashton. I have still to +learn that she is living under false pretenses." + +"Is it not false," retorted Edith, with difficulty controlling her +voice, her indignation increasing with every word, "to pass as widow, +to live separated from her husband?" + +"Oh, false? Why, in your stiff, conventional definition of the word +that calls the letter every thing, the spirit nothing, I dare say it is +false; but what of that? She has a right to do as she pleases, has she +not?" + +Edith drew herself back in her chair and looked at him across the dimly +lighted chamber. It is but justice to her husband to consider that he +could not dream of the anguish she suffered. It was, as he so often +said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, +even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply +high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was +neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which +she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of +right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous +lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter +than the knowledge that the truth was not sacred to the man she loved. +Her husband's words pierced her like a dagger. It was some minutes +before she answered him. He rose moodily, lit a cigar at the gas jet +and sat down again before she broke the silence. + +"Arthur," she said in a voice which was sad and full of the solemnity +of deep feeling, "have you no regard for truth?" + +"Truth!" retorted he. "To go back to Pilate's conundrum, 'What is +truth?' If you mean a strict and fantastic adherence to facts and to +stiff conventional rules, no, I haven't the slightest regard for truth. +If you mean the eternal verities as a man's own nature and the occasion +interpret them, yes, I have the highest." + +"But that is only a confusion of words, Arthur. What do you mean by +'eternal verities' if not adherence to facts? The eternal verities +cannot be whatever it pleases any one to say. Doesn't all human +intercourse depend upon faith in one another that we will adhere to +facts? Even if you do not look at the right and the wrong, there are +surely reasons enough why the truth should be sacred." + +Her husband whiffed his cigar, idly blowing a succession of graceful +rings. + +"You are quite a metaphysician. Did you have a pleasant dinner?" + +"But, Arthur," Edith persisted, ignoring his attempt to break away, +according to his habit, from a discussion which did not please him, +"but, Arthur, do you think it right for Mrs. Greyson--Mrs. Ashton, I +mean, to live so?" + +"Right? Oh, that is the same old question in another shape. Mr. Candish +will answer all those theological riddles; it is his business to. They +don't interest me." + +He threw away his half smoked cigar, dusted his coat sleeve of a stray +fleck of ash, settled his cravat before the glass, and humming a tune +walked towards his wife, his hands clasped behind him. + +"We do not agree, Edith," he said with cold deliberation, "and unless +you broaden your views, I am afraid we never shall. You are a dozen +decades behind the day, and are foolish enough to take all your church +teaches you in earnest. Religion should no more be taken without salt +than radishes. The church inculcates it to excuse its own existence, +but you certainly are reasonable enough to outgrow this old-fashioned +Puritanism." + +"Arthur," was her answer, "we do not agree, and if you wait for me to +come to your standards, I am afraid you are right in saying that we +never shall; and, indeed, I hope you are right. It makes me more +unhappy than you can think," she continued, her eyes swimming with +bitter tears, "that we are so far apart on what I must believe to be +vital points; on truths which I believe, Arthur, with my whole soul--as +you would, too, had you not carefully educated yourself into a doubt +which cannot make you better or happier." + +She had risen as she spoke, and stood facing him, her pure, pale face +confronting his with a look of pathos which touched him despite +himself. She came a step nearer, and put her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, Arthur!" she pleaded, "I love you, and how can I help mourning +that you wrong your better nature; that you resist the impulses of your +own best self?" + +He yielded to her caresses in silence. He remembered that Helen had +used this same phrase. + +"Women always appeal to one's best self," he commented inly, with a +mental shrug, "which means a man's inclination to do whatever a woman +asks of him." + +But he kissed his wife's lips, and said, tolerantly: + +"We will talk it over some other time, my dear. We are both tired +to-night. But you are right, I suppose, as you always are." + +And she loosened her arms from his neck, recognizing that he had put +her appeal aside and waived the whole matter. + + + + +XXIX. + +A NECESSARY EVIL. + Julius Caesar; ii.--2. + + +At the St. Filipe Club, somewhere in the small hours of that same +night, half-a-dozen members were lingering. One was at the piano, +recalling snatches from various composers, the air being clouded alike +with music and smoke wreaths. + +"I think you fellows are hard on Fenton," the musician protested, in +response to some remark of Ainsworth's. "I don't see what he's done to +make you all so down on him." + +"It isn't any thing that he has done," Tom Bently replied, "it is what +he has become. He has developed an entirely new side of his nature, and +a deucedly unpleasant one, too." + +"I always had a mental reservation on Fenton," remarked another. "He +was always insisting that his soul was his own, don't you know; and +when a man keeps that up I always conclude that he has his private +doubts on the subject; or if he hasn't, I have." + +"That's about the case with all the musical rowing we've been having +for the last year or two; every musician has been in a fever lest he +should be thought to be truckling to somebody." + +"What rubbish all this concert business is," remarked Tom. "In Boston a +concert interests a little _clique_ of people, and another bigger +_clique_ pretend to be interested. The nonsense that is talked +about music here is nauseating. The public doesn't really care any +thing about it. In Boston a concert is given in Music Hall; but in +Paris it is given in the whole city. It is an event there, not a +trifling incident." + +"What do you know about music?" retorted the player, clashing a furious +discord with his elbow as he turned towards the speaker. "I'll attend +to you presently. Now I want to know about Fenton. What has he done +that you are all blackguarding him?" + +"I think he's got a creed," said Ainsworth, scowling and smiling +together, according to his wont. "I hate to charge a man with any thing +so black, but I think Fenton's wife has made him take a creed, and a +pretty damned narrow one at that." + +"By Jove!" the musician observed, solemnly. "It's too bad. Fenton is a +mighty bright fellow, and no end obliging." + +"If it's only a creed," swore Bently, "what's all this fuss about? +Every body has a creed, hasn't he? A man's temperament is his creed." + +"It isn't his having a creed that I object to," remarked Grant Herman; +"it is the question of his sincerity that troubles me. If he has taken +up some collection of dogmas merely to please his wife--who seems a +very sweet, quiet body--that is of course against him; but if he +believes it, I don't see why we should object." + +"Believes it!" sniffed Ainsworth, in great contempt. "That is worse +than any thing I've said. I don't think Fenton is quite such an idiot +as that comes to. The idea of his believing in Puritanism! Oh, good +Lord!" + +"Puritanism," Bently threw in irrelevantly, and because he liked the +sound of it, "Puritanism is the preliminary rottenness of New England. +If he is struck with that by all means let him go; the further the +better." + +"Isn't it his night for the Pagans this month?" somebody inquired. + +"Yes," returned Bently, "but I took the liberty of going to him and +asking if he would let me take it this turn. I hope you fellows don't +mind." The talk thus flowed on in a desultory fashion amid ever +thickening clouds of tobacco smoke, and Grant Herman, sitting for the +most part quiet, had a whimsical idea in looking at his +half-extinguished cigar. Certain excellent cigars, his thoughts ran, +have a way of burning sluggishly about the middle, and without actually +going out, yet need to be relighted; and in the same way a man's life +goes on better for the kindling flame of a fresh attachment in middle +life. He fell into reverie, thinking of Helen and of Ninitta. He had +not seen the Italian since her flight, but from Mrs. Greyson he had +learned the story of the finding and recovery of the fugitive; and his +heart kindled with gratitude toward the woman who had prevented +consequences which he should have fruitlessly regretted. He became so +absorbed in his thoughts that only the entrance of Fred Rangely aroused +him. + +"Hallo, Rangely," the new comer was greeted, "where do you come from at +this time of night?" + +"Oh, from the office of the Daily Day-before-yesterday. I had an +article in, and I wanted to read the proof. I can stand any thing in +the world better than I can endure a compositor's blunders. Do any of +you know Dr. Ashton?" + +"I do," somebody answered. "What of him?" + +"Rather clever fellow, wasn't he?" + +"Why, yes; I think he is. He's rather odd sometimes. What about him?" + +"Dead." + +"Nonsense! I saw him myself not three hours ago, posting a letter in +the box opposite his office." + +"He is dead, though. Heart disease. They just got the news at the +_Advertiser_ office." + +"Where was he?" + +"In his office. The night porter of the building heard him fall against +the door. They say he must have died without a struggle." + + + + +XXX. + +HOW CHANCES MOCK. + II Henry IV.; in.--I. + + +Early on the following forenoon Helen took her way to the studio. She +was in unusually good spirits that day, for no especial reason that she +could have told, although indeed it is possible that the prospect of +meeting Grant Herman may have subtly contributed to the buoyancy of her +mood. + +She walked briskly through the bracing morning across the Common, her +mind full of bright fancies. A thin column of smoke arose from the +chimney of the lodge in the deer-park, rising straight in the clear +air, and cheerfully suggestive that some tiny family, not too large for +the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer +themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a +picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck +sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and +now and then glancing at his wife over his spectacles. + +In this joyous mood she came to the studio. A sudden thought darted +through her mind, with no apparent connection, of the talk of the night +previous, and for an instant her face clouded; but the exhilaration of +the morning and the reaction from the sad, overstrained state in which +her husband had left her, both helped her to throw off all mournful +thoughts. Ninitta had not arrived, and Mrs. Greyson busied herself +about the bas-relief, preparing for work. Suddenly the tap of Grant +Herman sounded upon her door. + +"Good morning," he said, entering in response to her invitation. "I +knew by your step that you were in good spirits, and it gave me so much +pleasure to think you were glad to be back, that I had to come up." + +"I am in good spirits," she returned. "It is such a glorious morning, +and Ninitta has kept me away from my work long enough for me to be very +glad to return to it." + +"What of Ninitta?" he asked, a shadow coming over his fine face. "She +is not still with you?" + +"No, but she is coming to pose this morning, though I hardly think she +is strong enough." + +The sculptor took in his hands a bit of clay and began nervously to +model it into various shapes. + +"Why did you take her home, Mrs. Greyson?" he asked after a moment's +silence. + +"Because she needed me," Helen answered. "And besides," she added +hesitatingly, "I thought you would like her to be under my care." + +"Did you?" he returned eagerly. "I was more grateful to you than you +would let me tell you! I--" + +He broke off abruptly as if determined to keep himself from any +dangerous demonstrativeness. + +"Come into my studio a moment," said he, throwing down the clay he +held. "I have something to show you." + +Helen followed willingly, glad to avoid the chance of their being +interrupted by the arrival of Ninitta, whose jealousy might easily be +aroused again. The sculptor led the way through a couple of chambers, +bringing her out at the top of the stairs leading down in the corner of +his studio. The morning sun shone in through the window far up in the +side wall, tinged to rich colors by the stained glass which Herman had +set there. The statues and casts looked in the light coming from above +them, as if they had just emerged from garments of shadows which yet +lay fallen about their feet. Helen uttered an exclamation of +admiration. + +"How charming the studio is in this light," she said. "It is like +looking down into a ghost world." + +"It is a ghost world," was the response. "It has long been haunted, but +I had not supposed that any eyes but my own saw the wraiths which dwell +here." + +The vibratory quality in his voice warned her not to answer. She felt +that she stood upon the brink of a significant interview, yet she +lacked the resolution to turn back. + +She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor +following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she +wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from +Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not +pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent passion, and, +indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if +unmixed with some desire to escape from him. + +All sorts of artistic rubbish had accumulated in the little gallery; +broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored +marble, and the thousand objects which make up the _debris_ of a +sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung +dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the +white-plaster goddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small +antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids +danced in immortal glee. + +"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar +before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?" + +"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle +shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?" + +"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated. + +"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar--it +is a Hymeneal altar, they say--and said I would pour a libation upon +it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough." + +He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more +definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away +into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast +down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored +marble, resting upon the altar. + +"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to +leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed +up ever since until--until recently." + +However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was +yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the +sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to +what the question might lead, she asked: + +"And recently?" + +"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and +meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me." + +He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since +the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion +in an abstracted, impersonal way. + +"To remind you?" she in turn echoed. + +"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, +and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair." + +She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch +her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund +Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face. + +"But you removed it here." + +"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this +world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves--the +amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was +too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of +sight." + +She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned +and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing +eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again +and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to +speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words: + +"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see +mirrored in it." + +"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly. + +"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is +worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible." + +"But facts are such achromatic glasses." + +To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling +stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the +sculptor carefully removed. + +A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and +of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of +broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head +and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling +with the limpness of death. About the noble, lifeless head were bent +and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly +destroyed. + +Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the +pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her +eyes. + +"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure. + +Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the +pedestal, and she saw the words: + + "I strew these opiate flowers + Round thy restless pillow." + +Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a +delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the +face of the tall form beside her. + +"But he is dead," she murmured at length. + +"It seems so," he assented. + +She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white. + +"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice +thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love +him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton--Dr. +Ashton." + +"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton, +Teuton's friend?" + +"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to +heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have +told you, but I could not bear--Oh," she cried, breaking off her +sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!" + +"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you +been told?" + +"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?" + +"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?" + +"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?" + +"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was +possible to soften the blow. "He is dead." + +"Dead!" + +Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a +lifeless warrior. + +A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing +of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more +that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when +confronted by the irremediable--as if some blame must be taken for the +acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the +responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to +question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. +Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late +aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of +his suffering she might more strongly--A sudden thought pierced her +like a knife. + +"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly. + +"Of heart disease." + +So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were +truth. + +"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta." + +When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. +Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone +out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which +resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing +of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it +before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, +like the life of him whose last act had been their forming: + + "DEATH FOILS THE GODS." + + + + +XXXI. + +HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast +that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead." + +"Dead!" she exclaimed. + +Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an +unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a +subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it +made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost +immoral. + +"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph +containing the announcement of Dr. Ashton's sudden death from heart +disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow +and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now." + +"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?" + +"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably +make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon." + +"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her +eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so--so--flippantly." + +"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you +should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of +it,--to you, that is; of course I should not in public." + +"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean--" + +"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as +ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will +took poison, poor old fellow." + +She sank back in her chair, white and trembling. + +"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if +Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier." + +"Providence is noted for close observance of the _lex talionis_" +sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that +functionary, so it really ought to have passed him by. It would +certainly have been more dignified." + +"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his +last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are +all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own +lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all +a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr. +Ashton--Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I +cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!" + +She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, +and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with +intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her. +He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues +of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table. + +"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the +sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough +of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things +to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will +use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking +people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all +a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of +view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant +Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to +obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superstitions. +There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston--and +for aught I know a hundred thousand--who believe, or, if you like, +disbelieve, as I do." + +"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad +to think of." + +"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me +as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them." + +She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The +sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, +and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned +her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her +husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her +power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote +herself wholly to duty. + +The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further +conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton +had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received +later in the day. + +"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in +confidence." + +The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be +outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note: + + +DEAR ARTHUR:-- + +I've a strong presentiment--and although I disbelieve in presentiments, +mine generally come true--that in about half an hour my obituary will +be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me +to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit +dramatically, and you've often assured me that that is the chief thing +to consider in this connection. I've contemplated such a possibility +long enough to have my affairs in order, and doubtless your wife will +have a mass or two said for the repose of my soul. If you ever have a +chance to do Helen a good turn, you may regard it as a personal favor +to my ghost to do it. I've left you my Diaz as a sort of propitiatory +sop. + +Yours, of course, as ever, W. A. + + +"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" Edith sobbed, breaking down again. "It is awful! +It is just as he always talked. It is as light as if he were going out +to drive." + +"Naturally," was the response. "If you fancy Will would cry baby at +death, you knew him far from as well as I did. How strange it is to +think of his being in the past tense, poor fellow. It was clever of him +to leave me his Diaz; I always coveted it." + +In the face of this, what was there for Edith to say. She was simply +numbed to silence, and horror at her husband for the time deadened all +sense of the shock of Dr. Ashton's death. It was not until later in the +day that she was able to think of Helen. + +"But, Arthur," she said then, "Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Well; what of Mrs. Greyson?" + +"I am going to see her." + +"After your last night's indignation?" + +"I may have been wrong," Mrs. Fenton said bravely, "I may have been +hard. I realize every day how little I am able to judge for other +people. Perhaps I am narrow, as you say. At least now her husband is +dead I can show her my sympathy; and since I know more of him, it does +not seem so strange that she left him." + +"They left each other," he responded to these contradictory words. "But +what can you say? The consolations of religion will hardly be +available, and Helen never pretended to love Ashton?" + +His tone wounded her, but she answered without a change of countenance: + +"The death of the man who has been her husband can never be indifferent +to any true woman. I shall not force her to listen to any religion she +does not wish to hear." + + + + +XXXII. + +A SYMPATHY OF WOE. + Titus Andronicus; iii.--I. + + +"I am afraid you will think me intrusive," was Edith's hesitating +greeting to Helen, "but I could not help coming. I thought you might +feel lonely." + +Helen looked at her for a moment with wistful eyes and trembling lips: +then she crossed swiftly to where her friend stood and kissed her. And +never could these two be so wholly separated or estranged again as to +efface the memory of all the meaning that this caress conveyed. The +word which Edith had used had been most happily chosen. Her woman's +instinct divined the loneliness which overwhelmed the widow, and this +proof of her sympathy was the passport to Mrs. Greyson's heart. +Loneliness was the feeling of which Helen was most of all conscious. +The death of even an indifferent acquaintance often may seem to +desolate the earth from its simple irremediableness, and much more does +the removal of one near to us make the world appear half a void. + +Helen had been sitting alone before Edith came, reviewing her past and +drearily speculating of her future. She went over the days of her +wedded life; her innocent, introspective childhood, in which she had +dreamed and read, dwelling in a world apart; alone but for the ideal +creations of her books or her own quick fancy. She had married knowing +as little of life or of love, as when, a lonely child, she had spelled +out the tale of Prince Camaralzaman, and wondered what the divine +passion really was, or if indeed it had existence, outside of fairy +lore. + +The torch of death throws its glare backward, and its funeral light +showed many a past long since forgotten, but now revealed with new and +distorting vividness. Helen remembered the baby which had lived but +long enough to open its eyes with a smile that seemed of recognition, +and then faded back into the unknown whence it had come. A throb of +tenderness for the dead father moved the mother's heart as she thought +of her baby, so little time hers, and so long asleep under the +marguerites of a grave over the sea. She had suffered much from the +selfishness, the dominant self-will, the distorted views of life of Dr. +Ashton; and these things she even now could not forget; but, too, she +thought of him as the father of her child, her baby ever dear and +living in memory. + +She reflected, too, of the men she had known, and especially of Arthur +Fenton. Her nature had need of some one upon whom to expend its +treasures, and she realized that had she not felt in the artist a +certain insincerity, he might have awakened her love. He had been +appreciative, sympathetic, brilliant; and, too, he had called largely +upon her patience and forbearance, than which there is no surer way to +win a generous woman's affection. Yet always some note rang false to +her fine ear, and to the weakness of his nature she had never been +wholly blind, although not until his marriage had given him a certain +distance had she realized how deep and unsparing her knowledge of him +really was. + +Of Grant Herman she would not think. Thoughts of him arose again and +again in her mind, but she resolutely put them down. Some secret stir +of mingled pain and joy told her too well that the sculptor had +awakened the first love of her life. But at least with her husband, +however unloved, lying yet unburied, she would not dwell upon the +passion of another. + +She took Edith's hand, and the two women sat down side by side, +shedding tears together, rather from a sense of the general woe and +bitterness of life than for poignant grief for the present calamity. It +was not much they said at first. Neither was of the talkative order of +women, finding comfort in the mere utterance of words. They grew +together, sustained by giving and receiving tenderness, and each +tacitly asking and according forgiveness for unfriendly feelings in the +past. It is probable, too, that Edith, heavy with the disappointments +of her married life, found relief in being able to weep unrestrainedly, +even though the true source of her tears was not the obvious one. + +"I never loved him," Helen said of her husband. "After we separated we +became friends, rather because of a common past when we were both +strangers here, than from any fitness for each other. But he was once +my husband." + +Her friend pressed her hand in silence. + +"We had a child," Helen spoke again; "a little daughter. She only lived +one day. If she had not gone it might have been different. At least we +should have kept on together. My poor little baby!" + +Edith's eyes were full of tears, as she answered softly: + +"I hope you will let me say that I believe she is waiting for you some +where." + +"She must be," the mother responded quickly. "Whatever one doubts, one +must surely believe that. I could not lose her! She is mine, wherever +in the universe she may be." + +"Yes," was all Edith ventured in reply. "I am sure of it." + +They gave no heed to the fading day, but sat with clasped hands until +twilight had gathered, and it occurred at last to Mrs. Fenton that her +husband and dinner must be awaiting her. Helen had been telling of her +plans. + +"I shall go abroad," she said, "I want to study in Rome; I want to meet +great men; to be influenced by great works. I have been thinking of it +for a long time, and now it seems as if some ties that held me here are +broken, for we often obey claims which we yet deny. And besides," she +added, in a lower tone, "it is a flight from temptation. I am in danger +here." + +"In danger?" Edith asked wonderingly. + +"Only from myself," was the reply, "but that peril is sufficiently +imminent to make me afraid." + +Edith questioned no further, and to the true import of these words she +had no clue. She looked at her friend a moment inquiringly and +musingly, but as Helen did not continue, she rose to go. + +"I must get home now," she said, in a tone so tender that it seemed to +beg pardon for this abandonment. "Arthur is waiting for me and his +dinner; and if he doesn't get the latter at least, I won't answer for +the consequences. Mr. Calvin was with him when I came away." + +"Mr. Peter Calvin!" exclaimed the other, in some surprise. + +"Yes; he has bought one of Arthur's pictures, and he wants Arthur to +propose him at the St. Filipe Club, I believe." + +She spoke in perfect ignorance of the tumult her words excited in her +hearer's mind. Long after Edith was gone Helen sat looking out into the +darkening sky and thinking of Arthur Fenton. She had heard him talk too +often about Mr. Peter Calvin not to know what was implied by this new +friendship. Mr. Peter Calvin had been for years the head and front of +Boston Philistinism in art. He had been the patron of subservient +artists; the chairman of committees for the purchase of public statues; +an elegant writer upon such live and timely topics as _Plaster +Casting among the Egyptians, Notes upon Abyssinian Statues_, while +his monograph upon the question, _What Was the Original Cost of the +Venus de Milo?_ had by his flatterers been pronounced the +masterpiece of all known art essays for power and critical research. +His was a prominent name upon the covers of dilettante art journals; it +was he who effectually crushed young and too daringly independent +artists; who repressed impertinent originality; who headed the hosts of +conventionality against individuality or genius which held itself above +the established canons of antiquated tradition. He was the High Priest +of Boston conservatism; the presiding genius of Philistia; and until +the St. Filipe Club entered a protest against him by refusing to admit +him to membership, his power had scarcely received a blow. + +Tom Bently always insisted, with much profanity, that Mr. Peter Calvin +was a joke. + +"He writes with tremendous pomposity," Tom would say, "and he is in no +end of societies for molly-coddling art. He goes on, too, about the +plaster casts at that hospital for decrepit gods, the Art Museum, as if +his whole soul was in the plaster barrels of the Greeks. But bless your +soul! It's only his little joke. He doesn't really mean any thing by +it. He's only a stupendous joke himself." + +The Pagans, so far as they were to be regarded as an entity, +represented the protest of the artistic soul against shams. They stood +for sincerity above everything; for utter honesty in art, in life, in +manners and morals alike. To them Philistinism was the substitution of +convention for conviction. For the spirit of imitation, of blind +subservience to authority, the Pagans had no tolerance. While they held +themselves always open to conviction, they refused assent to any thing +which was offered them _ex cathedra_; they devoted themselves to +art with a passion of enthusiasm which was in itself the highest +expression of their principles. That they seemed often iconoclastic was +in reality less the result of their hatred of authority than the +prevalence of unreasoning, and therefore by their standards necessarily +insincere, adherence to established formulae. Dogmas they hated, not +because they were popularly received, but because although they had +been vital realities to their originators, they had become in time mere +lifeless forms, held in reverence by blind devotees long after the soul +had gone out of them. + +In art especially the Pagans demanded the most absolute surrender of +self to truth; and it should be added that they defined truth exactly +as Helen did, "that which one sincerely believes." They had no +condemnation too severe or sweeping for the artist who worshipped the +golden gods of Philistia by following popular conventions at the +expense of his honest art ideals. It is not impossible that they +carried this feeling to extremes sometimes, suspecting every thing +which was stamped with popular approval, but in the main at least their +standard was of the highest and their lives conformed well to it. +Measured by the creeds they rejected, they might often enough be found +wanting; tried by their own, there had never been an apostate among +them until the defection of Fenton. + +No one had been more bitter and outspoken in his condemnation of Mr. +Calvin and of what he represented than Arthur Fenton. Many a time he +had entertained Helen with stories of the presumption and the ignorance +of this man whom now he was receiving into his friendship, or, more +properly, in whose train of sycophants he had taken his place. + +Helen could not forgive him. Leaving dinner untasted, she sat with +burning cheeks in the darkness, mourning over the apostacy of the man +who had been her warmest friend. + + + + +XXXIII. + +A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +Dr. Ashton had been in his grave several weeks. Life had gone on much +as usual in Boston, with the bickerings of small souls the gaping +imitations of the mob, the carping of the self-appointed critics, and +the earnest endeavor of the honest and inspired workers, who leaven the +lump of modern civilization. + +Among the Pagans the nomination of Mr. Calvin to the St. Filipe Club by +Arthur Fenton had been received with a bitterness born of a feeling of +outraged confidence. They were to-night to meet in Tom Bently's studio, +and Fenton, who had no intention of being present, was yet keenly +conscious of what the talk there concerning him would be. He was glum +and moody at dinner, and Edith, who knew that this was Pagan night, +watched him wistfully. She hoped to win him away from friends and +acquaintances who seemed to her dangerous. Perfectly honest and ready +to lay down her life for her husband, she was yet urging him into paths +which he felt it to be degradation to walk, since they led him away +from sincerity. She had no means of knowing how his sudden championship +of Mr. Calvin was regarded. Her own relations to art had been those of +pretty amateurishness. She had been bred to believe in conventionality, +and the flavor of Bohemianism alarmed and repelled her. + +To-night she had put on her most becoming dress, she had ordered the +dinner with especial reference to her husband's tastes, and she exerted +herself to be as entertaining and attractive as lay in her power. She +even allowed herself the innocent ruse of delaying dinner a little, +that it might be later before Arthur could be ready to go out; and when +the answer to her timid hope that he was to be at home that evening, +was in the affirmative, her foolish, tender heart fluttered with +delighted hope that she was influencing him to shake off his irregular +associations. + +He was rather gloomy and silent all the evening, brooding of the +Pagans, from whose meetings he had never before been absent, and of +Helen, and what she would think. Edith tried all her arts and wiles to +make him forget the pleasure he was losing, and she partly succeeded, +since her attentions and endearments chimed in with the train of +thought by which he was endeavoring to prove to his own satisfaction +that he was the most virtuous of men, and that his swearing allegiance +to Philistinism, was a noble example of a transgressor willing to +confess and abjure his faults. He accepted his wife's attentions as +eminently fitting under the circumstances, and could he have forgotten +the Pagans and Helen, he might almost have been comfortable. More than +once in the old days he had found it hard to face Mrs. Greyson's clear +eyes, which saw so readily through shams, and now while he was able to +work himself into a defensive attitude towards all others of his old +friends, he felt a horrible humiliation in the consciousness that Helen +was sure to know of his course and to understand all its weakness. + +It occurred to him, too, that Helen had avoided him of late. Since the +death of Dr. Ashton, he had scarcely seen her, although she was often +with his wife. He knew from Edith that she was soon to go abroad, and +he wondered if the wish to escape him had any share in bringing her to +this decision. + +He tormented himself with speculations and memories until he could +endure it no longer. He must have comfort; his wounded self-sufficiency +craved the balm of approval, and although he was contemptuously +conscious of his own weakness, he turned to Edith to seek admiration +and praise. + +"So you are glad that I am not going to the Pagans to-night," he said +to her, as they sat before the fire, for the evening was damp and +chilly. + +"Very glad," she answered, leaving her chair to come and sit upon a low +hassock by his knee. "It was so good of you." + +She made a beautiful picture as she sat there, her long dress of +cardinal and stone gray silk gathered in waves about her, the +Elizabethan ruffle setting off her shapely head and slender neck, while +the soft, yellow old lace showed how clear was the tone of her skin. +Her pure, sweet face, with its appealing dark eyes, was turned upward +to her husband's, in an expression at once wistful and full of love. +Edith had always a highbred air, and to-night her attitude and +expression added the one charm of warmth and softness needed to make +her most lovely and moving. + +"You doubtless have some excellent reason," remarked Arthur smiling +down on her. + +"I am afraid of them; they are in arms against every thing that is +acknowledged to be good." + +"And yet they are the most honest men I ever knew," he returned, half +musing, and with a little pleased sense of his magnanimity in saying +this at a moment when they were probably abusing him. + +"I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps they may be honest, but I am sure it is +not good for you to be with them. They are so sure that their false +views of life are true." + +The little sting in the implication that he was not able to resist the +influence which had surrounded him was forgotten in the satisfactory +view which his wife took of the real value of the judgments of the +Pagans. He knew how little she understood them. With every premise upon +which her conclusions were founded he disagreed, yet he said to himself +that Edith was right; that the Pagans were quite too infallible about +every thing. They would have him grope along poor and unknown, he +argued with himself, simply for the sake of standing in the position of +chronic rebuke to established authorities; with only now and then a +chance to get a hearing upon what they assumed to be the true theory of +art. What they believed--ah! there after all was the weakness of the +whole. What ground had they for their belief? Did he himself really +believe any thing, or had he a right to assert in any matter a positive +conviction? And even if they or he asserted never so strongly, what +sort of a test of truth was that? After all the Philistines, the +Calvins, were as likely to be right as were a set of discontented if +not disappointed artists; men whose natures would never allow them to +be satisfied with any existing state of things, since it would +inevitably differ from their dreamy ideals. And it was certainly true +that the weight of authority and of numbers was with the Philistines. + +"Perhaps you are right, Edith," he said aloud. "I hope so at least, for +they are probably indignant enough with me." + +"With you? Why?" + +"Oh, they choose to think I went over to Philistia when I proposed Mr. +Calvin for the St. Filipe. I'm sure I don't see why I haven't a right +to propose whom I please." + +"But Mr. Calvin, Arthur," responded Edith, who regarded that gentleman +as one of the art gods of Boston. "I should think any body would be +proud to propose him. Why, he is one of the most distinguished men in +the city." + +Her husband did not answer for a moment. He looked into the fire and +watched his inner consciousness adapt itself to this view of the case, +which than himself no one had condemned more bitterly. Yet it was the +theory upon which it was necessary to rest did he expect to arrive at +any comfort in the course of supporting Mr. Calvin, which he had +already pursued so far that retreat was impossible. Yes, he assured +himself, he could even accept this. And why not? Did not common opinion +confirm it; and however much common opinion might be sneered at, it was +surely the voice of the common sense of the world. + +He looked down at his wife, who looked back smiling proudly. He +realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she +was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to +beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; +and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his +rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He +realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his +convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin and his +following. He recalled Helen's remark that what is called being honest +with one's self is often the subtlest form of hypocrisy, and he did not +spare himself a single pang of self-humiliation and contempt; and then, +when he was full to the throat with self-loathing, he let his sensuous, +self-loving nature devise excuse and soothe his wounded vanity. + +He looked into the fire with a smile of mingled bitterness and +complacency, half ashamed, half amused at the view which introspection +gave him. + +But whenever into his musings came the thought of Helen it rankled like +a poisoned barb. For he secretly believed that Helen loved him, and +although if a man humiliates himself in the eyes of the woman he loves +it is as bitter as death; yet to prove unworthy in the sight of her who +hopelessly loves him, contains a more subtly envenomed shaft, which +wounds that most sensitive spot in a sensuous man's nature--his vanity. + + + + +XXXIV. + +HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--I. + + +That evening Helen too sat at home, alone and full of resistless +thoughts. + +She had put the finishing touches to the _Flight of the Months_, +completing the work with scarcely less success than at first, and in +three days she was to sail for Europe. She had not allowed Dr. Ashton's +death to interrupt her work, the necessity of avoiding unpleasant +gossip which would be provoked by the disclosure of her relations with +the dead man, being sufficient reason why she should not change her +outward life. She quietly and rapidly completed the preparations for +departure, and already the feeling of severance from familiar scenes +cast its sadness over her. + +Leaving the studio to-day, she had gone down to speak with Herman, whom +she wished to take the responsibility of the firing of the bas-relief. +When she had finished this errand she turned to a figure in terra-cotta +whose freshness showed that it had but recently come from the kiln. + +"What is this?" she asked. "I have never seen it." + +"It is a Pasht," the sculptor returned. "I modeled it as a wedding +present for Arthur Fenton, but luckily I did not get it done in time." + +"Why 'luckily?'" + +"Because I should be sorry to have given him any thing so closely +connected with the Pagans, as things have turned out." + +Helen did not need to ask explanations of these words, although she did +not know how complete the breach between Fenton and his former friends +had become. + +"I am glad I am going away," she exclaimed with a sigh. + +"Going away?" he echoed, dropping his modeling tools. + +"Yes, I sail Saturday." + +She spoke with perfect composure, yet her glance was averted. She was +painfully conscious of having concealed the fact from him until this +moment. + +He came towards her, his eyes fixed upon her face. + +"What does this mean?" he demanded, almost fiercely. "Why do you go?" + +"I mean to study in Rome," she replied faintly. "I always told you that +I hoped to go some day." + +"But why do you go now? Why have you concealed it from me? Are you +afraid of my--of my love? If any one must go it should be I; I have no +right to drive you away." + +"You are not driving me away; I--it is better that I should go." + +"But why go now? Now you are free, and I have a right to claim you." + +"No," Helen said in a voice suddenly firm, but which yet showed her +inward agitation, "no; there is Ninitta. I have suffered too much +myself to be willing to try to come to happiness over any woman's +heart. It is better that I should go." + +"Ninitta!" Herman burst out. "She has no claim; she will not even care; +she--" + +"No," interrupted Helen, laying her hand upon his arm. "You cannot say +that; you know it is not true. You can see as well as I that Ninitta is +pining her life out over your neglect. We are not free to break her +heart when you yourself taught her to love." + +"I have never been unkind to her," he said, a little defiantly; "except +perhaps when she acted like a mad woman and broke your figures." + +"In love," returned Helen, smiling faintly, and glad to take refuge in +generalities, "sins of commission, as compared with the deadly sin of +omission, are mere venial offenses. It is not what you have done, but +what you have left undone." + +"But what can I do? I cannot force myself to love her?" + +"You have made her love you." + +"But I outgrew her centuries ago." + +"The price of growth is always to outgrow," replied Helen. + +She was struggling hard to keep the conversation away from dangerous +levels. She felt that she must seem heartless, but none the less she +went on bravely. + +"And after all what is outgrowing? It is a question of moods, of--" + +But her courage failed her. Her voice trembled, she turned away from +him and walked down the studio, stopping here and there as if to +examine a cast or a figure, invisible through the tears which welled up +in her eyes. The sculptor followed close behind her, until she put her +hand upon the great Oran rug which hung before the door. + +"Then you leave me," he broke out bitterly. "You make Ninitta a pretext +for escaping me. You might have told me that you did not care for me. I +would not have molested you." + +She turned to him suddenly, and he was startled by the whiteness of her +face, for she was pale to the very lips. + +"Do you think it is easy for me to go," she cried passionately, "to +give you up when I love you! You should help me, not make it harder. +Isn't it better to part now while we have nothing to regret than to +live with a wrong between us?" + +"But what wrong will be between us? Surely that boyish mistake need not +blight both our lives." + +"Can we help it?" she asked sadly. + +"We will help it! Are we merely puppets then, to be bandied about +helplessly? I told her I loved her; it is no longer true, and why is +the pledge that followed binding?" + +"It is not simply that you gave her your word," Helen returned, +struggling bravely with herself; "it is that you made her love you, and +that obligation you can never shake off. Oh, it is because you are too +noble to take a woman's love and then trample upon it, that I love +you--that you fill my heart." + +She poured out the words, her eyes blazing, her splendid form dilated, +her arms involuntarily extended towards him. He took her into his +embrace; not hastily, not wildly; but with a slow, irresistible movement +that had in it something of solemnity. He showered kisses upon her +hair, her forehead, her lips; he pressed her to his bosom as if he +would absorb her into himself. + +"My darling, my darling," he said, in a hoarse, fiery whisper, "I +cannot give you up! Think how lonely I am; how I love you!" + +She put up her face and kissed him with a long, clinging kiss; then she +freed herself from his arms. They stood face to face, her eyes +appealing, until his glance fell before hers. + +"Yes," he said in a voice so low that she bent forward to listen, "yes; +you must be right." + +"I am right," she responded sadly, "I have fought against it too much +not to be sure of that." + +"It is an odd way of proving my love for you to give you up," continued +Herman, with a new accent of bitterness in his voice. "Oh, the folly of +that boyish passion!" + +He strode away from her, as she leaned panting against a modeling +stand. The darkness was gathering so rapidly that when he turned back +his face came out of the gloom like a surprise. + +"My reward," he said, "must be that you love me; but that very reward +makes it harder to deserve it. I am sure that we would be wiser and +happier if we had no scruples to hamper us." + +"But we have," was her response; "to take your own words, we are not +mere puppets." + +Again he walked away from her, and for a few moments there was no sound +but that of his heavy footsteps, which seemed to make the silence more +solemn and penetrating. + +"I will do whatever you ask," he burst out suddenly. "I will even marry +her if you wish." + +"I ask nothing. It is not I but your convictions you should follow. I +am not even able to advise. Your own instincts are better and nobler +than any thing I can say to you." She stopped and choked back a sob. +"Oh, Grant, it is so hard!" she cried. + +She had never used that name before, and it so thrilled him with joy +and pain that he made an impulsive movement as if once more to take her +in his arms; but she lifted her hand with a gesture of negation. + +"I have been tempted as well as you," she continued, "I have said to +myself a thousand times that love justified all, and that these +theories were too fine spun. I could not keep the thought of you down +even when I first knew I was a widow, and I said over and over to +myself that now no one stood between us. I knew it was no use, but I +lay awake in the night and tried to prove to myself that Ninitta had no +claim,--but, oh! you are too much to me for me to be willing that you +should do what we both know is wrong and cruel. I can endure anything +better than that you should not always be my ideal; and I should hate +myself if I tempted you to wrong." + +"What I am," he said brokenly, moved most of all by the tears upon her +cheeks, "is nothing. You have beaten this temptation, not I; I would +have done any thing if you had encouraged me. I am a very ordinary +mortal, Helen, when one really knows my littleness." + +She smiled through her tears at him. + +"You shall not abuse yourself;" she replied. "I will not have it." + +There was not much further said between them. They remained together +until the dusk filled the studio, and it looked again like a +ghost-world as on the morning they two had come into it to see the dead +form modeled in red clay. Perhaps it was upon this remembrance that at +length Mrs. Greyson said: + +"Will you give me, before I go to Europe, that figure you showed me?" + +"I will give you any thing you ask," he answered; "I wish I might add +myself. Is it right," he added, with sudden fire, "for me to tie myself +to that model girl? Am I worth nothing better than that?" + +"You are worth the best woman on earth; but--oh I cannot argue it, but +I feel it; I am sure that it cannot be right to deny the claim which +you yourself gave her, Grant. I know by myself what it would be to lose +you." + +"But she is not the woman you are. Her feelings are those of an +ignorant peasant; she--" + +Helen laid her fingers lightly upon his lips. + +"No," she said, "don't go on. We have said it all once. You are trying +to out-argue your own convictions. I must go now. It is almost dark +already." + +She took a step or two towards the door and again laid her hand upon +the rug _portiere_. Then as by a common impulse they turned +towards each other, and once more she was locked in his embrace. + +And to-night, sitting alone in the dark, with dilated eyes, Helen felt +still the ecstasy of that moment, but murmured to herself: + +"It must not be again; I will not see him alone." + + + + +XXXV. + +PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP. + Othello; ii.--I. + + +Tom Bently's studio that night was a sight well worth seeing. + +Tom had two rooms in Studio Building, opening into each other by +folding doors, which were never known to be shut. The walls were hung +with old French tapestry, its rich, soft colors harmonizing exquisitely +with some dull-red velvet draperies from Venice. Bits of armor, some of +them very splendid, were disposed here and there, while a wealth of +_bric-a-brac_ enriched every nook and corner. In the doorway hung +an old altar-lamp of silver, with a cup of ruby glass, and from various +points depended other lamps of Moresque and antique shapes. A pair of +tall brass flambeau-stands, spoil of a Belgian cathedral sacked a +couple of centuries ago, upheld the heaviest candles Tom had been able +to find, which smoked and flared most picturesquely. + +Bently had traveled widely, every where picking up graceful and +artistic trifles--stuffs from Algiers; rugs from Persia and Turkey; +weapons from Tripoli and India and Tunis; musical instruments from +Egypt and Spain; antiques from Greece and Germany and Italy; and +pottery from every where. His studio was the envy of all his brother +artists, although he himself growled about it profanely, declaring that +he had so much rubbish about him that he could not work, yet +nevertheless declining to part with a single object. + +"I ought to clear the place out," he would say. "My pictures are +getting to look like advertisements of an old clo' shop, and if a man +doesn't change all his properties every year, the sapient critics say +he has become mannered. But I can't let them go; or rather they won't +let me go; they hang on like barnacles to an old hulk." + +The Pagans were six that night, Fenton's place being unfilled. The +delinquency of the absent artist was a good deal commented upon, yet +always as if an effort were made to keep the subject out of the +conversation. It came up again and again, and that not unnaturally, +since it was necessarily in every man's thoughts. + +"He's a mellifluous coward, now isn't he?" Bently remarked, with his +usual picturesque disregard of the conventional use of words. "The +average American couldn't have been more sneaking." + +"He was always afraid of the rough grain of life," Rangely responded. +"I always told him he was a born coward. He could never serve any cause +that wouldn't give him a uniform of broadcloth. But he was born for +something better than tagging after Calvin and his tribe, heaven +knows." + +"Bah!" went on Bently, "the bad taste of it! I could get over every +thing else, but the bad taste of proving a sneak, and giving up every +thing worth while." + +Somebody threw in a quotation from Browning's _Lost Leader_, and +then Grant Herman, trying to turn the conversation, took up Bently's +remark. + +"You're right, Tom," he said, "in your view of taste. Taste is +sublimated morality. It is the appreciation of the proportion and +fitness of all things in the universe, and of course it is above simple +morality, for that is founded upon a partial view. Taste is the +universal, where a system of morals is the local." + +"Can't you say that of art?" asked Rangely. "I should think art is the +universal, where religion is the provincial. A religion expresses the +needs and the aspirations of a race or a country, while art embodies +the aspirations and attributes of humanity." + +"Good!" Bently responded. "That is better than I should have said it, +but it's my belief, all the same. There are so few people who have +imagination enough even to understand what one means by saying that art +is the only thing in the world worth living for. Why, art is the +supreme expression of humanity; the apotheosis of all the best there is +in the race." + +"I don't see that," objected another. "Isn't religion the expression of +the longings of the soul, or whatever there is in us we call soul? I +can't say it well, but it seems to me you talk of religions, not +religion." + +"People seldom take the trouble to make that distinction. He who +attacks any of the religions is generally set down as striking at +religion itself." + +"Religion," returned Bently, "is the expression of fear, and nothing +else, if you sift it to the bottom. Knowledge kills so-called religion +as surely as it does those lower forms of belief which it is nowadays +the fashion to dub superstition. It is precisely the same feeling that +builds churches and that rhymes the country hag's charms. Fairies and +saints are double and twisted cousins, after all." + +"But religion," persisted the German, "is more than the expression of +fear; it is the embodiment of the aspirations of mankind; of the +instinct and desire for worship." + +"For worshipping something," amended Tom. "That is the same thing +differently phrased." + +"No, it isn't, either. To yearn for the higher is not to show that we +fear it, but that we long to grow like it. It is a confession of +incompleteness, of weakness, I grant you; but a thousand times no to +your calling it fear." + +"I confess to having been hasty, and modify my words so far as to say; +an expression of fear or weakness." + +"Is there then any shame in acknowledging weakness?" demanded the +German, pushing him as hard as he was able. "It certainly is honest." + +"Is there any shame to formulating fear?" retorted the other, deftly +evading him. + +"Then see how religion always appeals to art to help out its ultimate +expression," observed Rangely. + +"And how it has failed," added Bently, "when it has not had art to help +it. Puritanism tried to get on without art, and where is Puritanism? +You couldn't find a trace of it, if it hadn't come down on its +marrow-bones and begged art to build its churches, compose its music, +and regulate its rituals." + +"It is no more fair to say that," objected another Pagan, doggedly, +"than to say that art has gone to religion for help. Their accounts are +pretty evenly balanced." + +"Nonsense!" Rangely returned. "Art has never gained by being religious, +but by being art; but religion owes its hold largely to the help art +has given it." + +"And it has paid its debts by blackguarding art from every pulpit it +has builded for it." + +"As Fenton used to say," Ainsworth remarked, "art has been used as the +sugar-coating to the bitter pill of religion." + +"Oh, Fenton again," Bently exclaimed impatiently. "What did you bring +him up for? Who the devil would have thought Fenton would have turned +out so?" + +"I can tell you a piece of news," said Rangely. "The Election Committee +blackballed Calvin this afternoon." + +"Good!" cried they all; and some body added: "But Fenton said he'd +resign if Calvin wasn't elected." + +"Resign," echoed Rangely, "I guess he'll have to. He's been sent to +Coventry by half the Club now for that Graves affair." + +"The Graves affair?" some one queried. "What's that? What else has he +been doing? If a man starts to go to the devil, it does seem as if he +never could get ahead fast enough." + +"Miss Graves was going to buy one of Flackerman's pictures, and heaven +knows he needs the money; and Fenton, who has always pretended to be +Flack's friend, talked her into taking one of his instead; or rather he +got Calvin to go to her and do it. It was a stunning Flackerman, too; +and we were all rejoicing over his luck." + +"I would not be too ready to believe that story," Grant Herman said. "I +don't think Fenton's gone utterly to the bad all at once. He's living +expensively, they say, and possibly he let Calvin go to Miss Graves; +but I don't believe Arthur ever originated that sneaking scheme, and I +shouldn't be surprised if he never knew the rights of the case." + +"He's done what so many artists have been bullied into doing before," +Ainsworth observed. "If he has sold his birthright for a mess of +pottage, that is precisely what the patrons of art in this country +demand that every man shall do who comes here. I could tell you of a +dozen good fellows who've been spoiled in that way. I am far enough +outside to look on in an unbiased way; but they treat us architects in +the same fashion. Lots of the most rubbishy and conventional men we +have, started out to be fair and work from conviction; and they simply +had the choice between subservience and starvation, and cases of the +choice of death from starvation haven't been over plenty." + +"Oh, a man is known by the tailor he keeps," threw in Rangely; +"especially if he doesn't pay him." + +"It's all a game of cut-throat," Bently remarked philosophically; "art +and business alike." + +"I should hate to have my throat cut," observed the German Pagan in a +matter of fact tone; "it must let a dreadful draught into the system." + +"Oh, if you were beheaded," cried Rangely, "you'd turn into a capital +beer fountain, so your friends would find some consolation, even in +your loss." + +A diversion was caused here by the production of a splendid Japanese +punch-bowl, supported upon a teakwood stand. In it the host proceeded +to brew a potent and steaming mixture, whose fragrance must have +delighted the jocund gods of jollity and laughter. Tom was notorious +for being chronically in pecuniary difficulties, but he was always +adding to his collection of _bibelots_, and he never was known to +lack the means of concocting a glorious punch. + +"Ye gods!" exclaimed Ainsworth, "how good that smells. It almost +overcomes the general mustiness of Tom's den here, which usually has +all the odors of the Ghetto from which his things are dragged." + +"Casper is intoxicated already with the mere fumes," retorted Bently +good humoredly. "He's bound to fill a drunkard's grave sooner or +later." + +"No; I never shall," chuckled the other. "I'm altogether too good +natured to crowd the drunkard out." + +This sally was received with applause, and the glasses being filled, +the usual toasts to the goddess Pasht and to art were drank. + +"And to our seven," went on Herman, holding up his glass, and going on +with the formula they had, half unconsciously, fallen into the habit of +using, although they made no pretense of having a ritual. + +But he set his glass down untasted, suddenly remembering that their +ranks were broken, and the others followed his example. + +"The difference between religion and art," broke out Rangely, +hurriedly, to cover the awkward silence which followed, "is that +religion is a matter of tradition, of convention; it rests upon +authority, while art springs from inner conviction." + +"Sophistry," retorted the German, picking up the gauntlet; "there have +been a good many things said here to-night which sound well but won't +stand fire. It is precisely for following conventions in art that we +blame Fenton." + +"And that proves my point." + +"No, it doesn't; there's as much art that depends upon tradition as +there is religion." + +"No," replied Rangely. "In so far as art gets its inspiration from +fossil tradition it is lifeless and indeed ceases to be art. Religion +presupposes something exterior; while art is the outgrowth of the +individual's own mind, the best expression of his inner strength." + +"Religion," Herman threw in, "demands the existence of the unknown; art +only the existence of the inexpressible." + +"Yet art devotes itself to expression." + +"Yes, but more to suggesting. It phrases the possible so as to suggest +that which is above and beyond expression, yet toward which it helps +the emotions and the imagination. I think a man's soul a matter of very +little moment as compared to his imagination, and it is because art +ministers to the latter that I place it above religion." + +The talk was diverted here by some laughing remark which led on to a +train of gay badinage. The German tried to bring the conversation back +to serious levels, but in vain. + +"Oh, what fustian we've given ourselves up to to-night," laughed +Rangely. + +"It amuses me to hear you fellows discuss religion," Tom Bently +observed. "You wander round the subject as aimlessly as the young women +in the first half hour of a Harvard symphony concert." + +"Never you mind, Bently," rejoined Ainsworth. "You are sure of coming +out all right; the gods are bound to protect humbug, for on it depends +their own existence." + +They drifted in little groups to different parts of the studio, +admiring this or that bit of grace or beauty. Then the German, who was +a professional musician, tuned an old mandolin with which a Venetian +lover some star-lit night centuries ago, may have serenaded his loved +one from his gondola; and to its trembling accompaniment sang a quaint +chansonette, his Teutonic accent making havoc among its liquid Italian +syllables. Then Rangely possessed himself of a strange African +instrument, a crooked gourd, hollowed and strung with twisted tree +fibers, and joined to the notes of the mandolin, its weird, cicada-like +harshness. The duet moved Bently to clear a miscellaneous collection of +articles from the lid of a spinnet of the time of Louis XIV., upon +which be-powdered and be-patched dames, long forgotten, had strummed +pretty little tinkling tunes, while all about them other +marionette-like ladies and gallants played at little tinkling loves, as +pretty and as empty. + +The three instruments, so strangely matched, went off together in a +variety of music, imparting to every thing an uncanny, ghostly flavor, +as if these airs came in wild echoes from the shores of some dead past. + +"Oh, stop that," Herman cried, at last. "It's too melancholy. Your +instruments are all dead; and it's no use trying to get live music out +of them." + +For reply the German led off in a drearisome minor folk-tune, Rangely +and Bently improvising their parts with some skill, albeit not always +with perfect harmony. + +"Ye Gods!" cried Ainsworth, seizing the mandolin out of the player's +grasp. "Is this a Hottentot funeral? Here, Fred, give me that +diabolical gourd; it is haunted by the soul of a Caffre medicine man." + +"I say, fellows," spoke Rangely, as the din subsided, "I move we make +this a funeral, by breaking up the Pagans. Of course there is nothing +to hinder our meeting round at each other's places whenever we want to; +but we've either got to turn Fenton out or break up. I, for one, am +coward enough to prefer to break up." + +"So say I," said Herman. "When once a circle like this is broken, there +is an end of it. It can't be patched together." + +They looked at each other in silence a moment. To disband seemed like +an acknowledgment of defeat. Many another band of ardent souls has +known the feeling, with its dreary ache, although it oftener happens +that a circle of this kind disappears by the gradual dropping away of +its numbers one by one rather than that its members are brought face to +face with the necessity of owning that its existence had resulted in +failure. Whatever their faults and extravagances, whatever their errors +and intolerance, they were sincere, self sacrificing and ardent beyond +the men who made up the world about them; a group of eager lovers of +truth and art who had been drawn together by mutual aims and +enthusiasms. Their fierceness had been in defense of honesty and +sincerity, their disinterestedness was attested by the fact that any +one of them might have made his peace with Philistia and been rewarded +for his complaisance had he so chosen. Doubtless they had their faults +and foibles, yet their comradeship, in its essential purport had been +true and noble. + +They in no wise abandoned their aims in agreeing with the proposition +to disband, but about their fellowship had been a certain un-phrased +tenderness, at which, if put in word, any one of them might have +scoffed, yet which nevertheless they all felt strongly in their secret +hearts, and all were conscious that after this defection of Fenton, the +circle could never be perfect again. They did not discuss the matter +now, but in the interval of silence each acknowledged to himself that +to disband was best; and briefly each gave his assent; all soberly, +some almost gruffly. + +And so it came about that the goddess Pasht lost her last band of +followers, and the Pagans assembled no more forever. + + + + +XXXVI. + +AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND. + Merchant of Venice; v.--2. + + +"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the +background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes +differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you'd see." + +"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage," +Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not +logical." + +"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still +say yes." + +It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come +to Fenton's studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have +that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not +choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife. + +"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature's protest against +civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on +her own ground, am I not?" + +"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote +Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what +is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be +honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must +be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever +acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have." + +"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too +self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to +win society? Society is ready enough to take them in." + +"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, +'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage +seems already to have sucked the life out of you." + +"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot +make me angry." + +"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is +your fault." + +"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, +"oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself." + +He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the +building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen. +He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of +the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite. + +"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence. +"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why +you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well +connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, +Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling +the Egyptians." + +"But that was in departing from their country." + +"We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only +disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect +you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself. +You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I +am able." + +She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives +seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his +marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her +impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing. + +"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not +her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?" + +"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look +coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?" + +"You are speaking of your wife!" + +"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or +of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long +ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do +precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime? +Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of +being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of +whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example." + +"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple +question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of +hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush +mark of your canvas there!" + +For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat +upright in his cushions and faced her. + +"Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You +cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I +asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with +the Philistines!" + +He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off +some disgusting touch. + +"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, +"far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I +prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever +else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would +like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes +me beautifully." + +He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait +contemptuously. + +"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming +thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. +The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving +them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't +enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of +standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by +enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, +she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while +they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help +her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with +the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not +wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most +part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial +good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you +choose." + +He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose +as he finished. + +"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own +judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have +ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race." + +"But I acknowledge my faults." + +"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment +is not reparation, though many try to make it so." + +She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand +upon the latch. + +"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet +again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can." + +"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at +him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you." + +"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil. +I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is +true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as +through her sincerity." + +"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen. + +"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed +my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word 'Pardon.'" + +"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than +either would be a blank! Let me pass!" + + + + +XXXVII. + +FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + Richard II.; ii.--2. + + +The outward bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle +attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people +who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying +little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, +while her glance was cast to the ground, save when she raised her head +in speaking. + +The Italian from time to time took Helen's hand in hers and kissed it +fondly. + +"I pray the Madonna for you every night," she whispered in her native +tongue, "that she will give you a safe voyage." + +The sculptor watched all that went on about them, waiting with some +inward impatience for the moment when the duty of escorting Mrs. +Greyson on board would give him an opportunity of being a moment alone +with her. + +"We shall miss you much," he said, feeling that any thing would be +better than the silence which hedged them in amid the noisy bustle of +the throng. "We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?" + +He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's +face, and for her alone he had ears. + +"Yes," he said again with nervous platitude, when once more they had +lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife +nor myself has any friend to take your place." + +Some faint accent in the tone in which he referred to his three hours' +bride made the widow look up suddenly. To the question in her eyes his +glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame +her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be +miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall +and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as time went on? + +But all these questionings Helen had answered with stern bravery during +the sad wakeful nights and lonely days just past. She had first +convinced herself that it was right that Herman should redeem his +old-time pledge to Ninitta, and after that she forced herself to the +bitterer task of realizing that when time had obliterated somewhat the +clearness of her own image in the sculptor's heart, something of his +old affection for the Italian might be rekindled in his generous, warm +nature, always tenderly chivalrous towards woman, and sure to prove +doubly so to one dependent upon him. It was hard, but Helen +unflinchingly analyzed the nature of her lover, and while she could not +believe that he would ever feel for his wife the grand passion which +she had herself inspired in his breast, she saw for him a tranquil +future in which his wife's devotion would be met with enduring, even +with increasing affection, which if not love, would be so like it that +Ninitta, at least, would never distinguish; and in which her husband +would find comfort and warmth, if not fire and aspiration. + +She had a harder struggle when the thought came to her, "Have I not led +him into the one thing he most dreads and despises, an act of +insincerity? Can a loveless marriage be honest?" But she answered her +doubting heart; "No; he has told Ninitta that he does not love her as +of old, and he is not deceiving her. It is my own selfishness that puts +this thought into my mind." It may be that Helen was wrong, for the +influence of her Puritan training had left a strong impress upon her +moral sense in a regard for the sanctity of a pledge, especially to its +spirit rather than its letter, so deep as to be almost morbid; yet at +least she was self sacrificing and never more truly consistent than in +the seeming inconsistency of urging this marriage. + +"Come," was Herman's word, almost a command, when the crowd upon the +steamer's deck began definitely to separate into those who were to go +and those who remained. "You must go aboard. Ninitta, stand just where +you are until I come back. I will be gone only an instant." + +Helen turned and kissed Ninitta, a sharp pang stabbing her very soul, +as the thought came to her: "He will love her; she is his wife, and he +will learn to love her!" Then she put her arm upon Herman's in silence. + +She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her +excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the +steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on +deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where +the two were alone. + +"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it +is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide." + +"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith +between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no +matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it +must be right." + +He bent forward to kiss her. + +"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I +have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now +we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave +you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to +love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to +each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not +forget me." + +"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered +he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his +cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future." + +She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer +sounded out sharply upon the air. + +"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, +even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she +added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, +though I must not share it." + +He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but +her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife +awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his. + +"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, +lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and +afraid without you." + +He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he +withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning +over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down +the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by +their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight. + +FINIS. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pagans, by Arlo Bates + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + +***** This file should be named 8671.txt or 8671.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/6/7/8671/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes 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: The Pagans + +Author: Arlo Bates + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8671] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 31, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE PAGANS + +By + +Arlo Bates + + + +The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. + _All's Well That Ends Well_; iv--3 + + + + +DEDICATION. + + +To those who would be Pagans, did any such organization +exist, I take pleasure in offering this attempt to picture a phase +of life which they know. + + + + She answered, "cast thy rosary on the ground; bind on thy + shoulder the thread of paganism; throw stones at the glass of + piety; and quaff from a full goblet." + _Persian Religious Hymn._ + + + +CONTENTS. + +I. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE +II. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT +III. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT +IV. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT +V. THE BITTER PAST +VI. A BOND OF AIR +VII. IN WAY OF TASTE +VIII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE +IX. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE +X. O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT +XI. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED +XII. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED +XIII. THE ASSAY OF ART +XIV. THIS IS NOT A BOON +XV. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL +XVI. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH +XVII. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES +XVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE +XIX. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS +XX. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED +XXI. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH +XXII. UPON A CHURCH-BENCH +XXIII. HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT, +XXIV. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING, +XXV. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME, +XXVI. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION, +XXVII. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE, +XXVIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE, +XXIX. A NECESSARY EVIL, +XXX. HOW CHANCES MOCK, +XXXI. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY, +XXXII. A SYMPATHY OF WOE, +XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN, +XXXIV. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY, +XXXV. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP, +XXXVI. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND, +XXXVII. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + + + + +PAGANS + + +I. + +SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE. + Measure for Measure, v--i. + + +A fine, drizzling rain was striking against the windows of a cosy third +floor sitting-room, obscuring what in pleasant weather was a fine +distant view of the Charles river. The apartment was evidently that of +a woman, as numerous details of arrangement and articles of feminine +use suggested; and quite as evidently it was the home of a person of +taste and refinement, and of one, too, who had traveled. + +Arthur Fenton, a slender young artist, with elegant figure and deep set +eyes, was lounging in an easy chair in an attitude well calculated to +show to advantage his graceful outlines. For occupation he was turning +over a portfolio of sketches, whose authorship was indicated by the +attitude of the lady seated near by. + +She was a woman of commanding presence, with full lips, whose +expression was contradicted by the almost haughty carriage of her fine +head and the keen glance of her eye, which indicated too much character +for the mere pleasure-seeker. Her hair was of a rich chestnut, and she +wore a dress of steel gray cashmere, relieved at the throat by a knot +of pale orange, which harmonized admirably with her clear complexion. +She watched her companion as if secretly anxious for his good opinion +of her drawings, yet too proud to betray any feeling in the matter. He, +for his part, turned them over with seeming listlessness, breaking out +now and then with some abrupt remark. + +"Yes," he said suddenly, after a ten minutes' silence, "I'm going to be +married at once. It will be 'a marriage in the bush,' as the Suabians +call an impecunious match, since neither of us has any money; and I, at +least, haven't so great a superfluity of brains that in this +intelligent age of the world I am ever likely to make much by selling +myself; and that is the only way any body gets any money nowadays." + +"I hardly think you'd be willing to sell," his companion answered, "no +matter how good the market." + +"There's where you are wrong," he answered, looking up with a sudden +frown, "the worst thing about me is that with sufficient inducement--or +even merely from the temptation of an especially good opportunity--I +should sell myself body and soul to the Philistines." + +"One would hardly fancy it, from the way you talk of Peter Calvin and +his followers." + +"Oh, as to that," retorted the artist, "don't you see that judicious +opposition increases my market value when I am ready to sell? If I +could only be sufficiently prominent in my antagonism, I might +absolutely fix my own price." + +The lady made no answer, but regarded him more intently than ever. + +"That's a good thing," he broke out again, holding up a drawing. "Why +don't you do that in marble, or better still, in bronze?" + +"I am putting it up in clay," she answered. "I thought I had shown it +to you. It is to be fired as my first experiment in a big piece of +terra-cotta. That is the first sketch; I think I have improved upon +it." + +It was the study for a bas-relief representing the months, twelve +characteristic figures running forward with the utmost speed. Gifts +dropped from their hands as they ran; from the fingers of June fell +flowers, from those of August and September ripened fruits, upon which +November and December trampled ruthlessly. January, in his haste, +overturned an altar against which February stumbles. + +"It is melancholy enough," Fenton observed, regarding it closely. "How +melancholy every thing is now-a-days?" + +"To a man about to be married?" she asked, with a fine smile. + +"Oh, always to me. The fact that I am going to be married does not +prevent my still being myself." + +"Unfortunately not," she returned, with a faint suspicion of sarcasm in +her tone. "You pique yourself upon being somber." + +"I dare say," answered he, a trifle petulantly. "Pain has become a +habit with me; discontent is about the only luxury I can afford, heaven +knows!" + +"Unless it is gorgeous cravats." + +"Oh, that," Fenton said, putting his hand to the blue and gold tie at +his throat. "I'm trying to furbish up my old body and decrepit heart +against my nuptials, so I invested fifty cents in this tie." + +"You couldn't have done it cheaper," remarked she; "though, perhaps," +she added dryly, "it is all the rejuvenation is worth." + +Fenton smiled grimly and again applied himself to the examination of +the drawings, while the other looked out at the rain. + +"Boston has more climate, and that far worse," she remarked, "than any +other known locality." + +"Does that mean that you are going to Herman's this afternoon?" asked +Fenton. + +"I should have gone this morning if you had not insisted upon my +wasting my time simply because you had determined to waste yours." + +Fenton laughed. + +"You are frank to a guest," he said. "I wished to be congratulated on +my marriage." + +"I shall not congratulate you," she answered. "You are spoiled. The +women have petted you too much." + +"According to the old fairy tale all goes well with the man of whom the +women are fond." + +"I remember," she said. "I always pitied their wives." + +"I shall treat Edith well." + +"You are too good-natured not to, I suppose; especially when you look +forward to your marriage with such rapture." + +"But, Helen, have I ever pretended to believe in marriage? Marriage is +a crime! Think of the wretched folly of those who talk of the holiness +of love's being protected by the sanctities of marriage. If love is +holy, let it have way; if it is not, all the sacraments priests can +devise cannot sanctify it." + +"Then why, Arthur, do you marry at all?" + +"Because marriage is a necessary evil as society is at present +constituted." + +"But," Helen said slowly, "you who pretend to have so little regard for +society--" + +"Ah, there it is," he interrupted. "Man is gregarious by instinct; he +must do as his fellows do. He must submit to the most absurd +_convenances_ of his fellowmen, as one sheep jumps where another +did though the bar be taken away. If he were strong enough to stand +alone he might take conventions by the throat and be a god!" + +His outburst was too vehement and sudden not to come from some +underlying current of deep feeling, rather than from the present +conversation. He had risen while speaking, his head thrown back, his +eyes sparkling. His companion regarded him with admiration, not +unmixed, however, with amusement. + +"And you," she said, "choose to call yourself a man without +enthusiasms." + +"Yes," replied he, smiling and regaining his seat, "I am a man without +enthusiasms." + +"That is the cleverest thing you ever said," Helen continued, musingly. +"And so we understand you intend to be ruled by conventionality and +marry?" + +"Precisely; it would be unjust to Edith to even talk to her of my +views." + +"I should hope so!" exclaimed his hostess. "But you will at least have +her to yourself, and that pays for every thing." + +"Oh, _peutetre!_" Fenton returned dubiously, perfectly well aware +that the remark had been made to elicit comment, yet too fond of +talking to resist temptation and leave it unanswered, "_peutetre_, +though I never believed in the desert-island theory. It is more in your +line; you still have faith in it." + +"Oh, I do," she rejoined quickly; "and so would you if you were in +love. You'd be content to be on a rock in the mid ocean if she were +there." + +"Love on a desert island," returned the young man, smiling +significantly; "Oh, _le premier jour, c'est bon; le deuxieme jour, ce +n'est pas si bon; le troisieme jour--mon Dieu, mais comment on +s'ennuie!_" + +"No, no, no," Helen broke in impetuously. "Good, always! Always, +always, or never!" + +Fenton threw back his head and burst into a shout of laughter. + + "'Twere errant folly to presume, + Love's flame could burn and not consume," + +he sang, going off again into peals of laughter. "Good by, _mon +amie_; oh, _mais comment on s'en--_" + +"Stop," interrupted she. "I'll have no more blasphemy." + +"Good-by, then," he said, picking up his hat. + +"You may as well stay to lunch," his hostess said rising. + +"No," returned he. "I must go and write to Edith." + +And off he went, humming: + + "'Twere errant folly to presume + Love's flame could burn and not consume." + + + + +II. + +THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. + Measure for Measure; iv--i. + +As many of the Boston clocks as ever permitted themselves so far to +break through their constitutional reserve as to speak above a whisper, +had announced in varying tones that it was midnight, yet the group of +men seated in easy attitudes before the fire in one of the +sitting-rooms of the St. Filipe Club showed no signs of breaking up. +Indeed, the room was so pleasant and warm, with its artistically +combined colors, its good pictures and glowing grates, and the storm +outside raged so savagely, beating its wind and sleet against the +windows, that a reluctance to issue from the clubhouse door was only +natural, and there would be little room for surprise should the men +conclude to remain where they were until daylight. + +The conversation, carried on amid clouds of fragrant tobacco smoke and +with potations, not excessive but comfortably frequent, was quiet and +unflagging, possessing, for the most part, that mellow quality which is +seldom attained before the small hours and the third cigar. + +"Yes, virtue has to be its own reward," Tom Bently was saying lightly, +"for, don't you see, the people who practice it are too narrow-minded +to appreciate any thing else." + +"And that makes it the most poorly paid of all the professions," was +the retort of Fred Rangely, who was lounging in a big easy chair; +"except literature, that is. Even sin is said to get death for its +wage, and that is something." + +"Virtue may be an inestimable prize for any thing you newspaper men can +tell. It is not a commodity you are used to handling." + +"Literature has little to do with virtue, it is true," was the +response. "Who would read a novel about virtuous people, for instance? +I'd as soon study the catechism." + +"How art has to occupy itself with iniquity," Fenton observed with a +philosophical puff of his cigar. "Or what people call iniquity; though +a truer definition would be nature." + +"Painting occupies itself with iniquity in its models," Rangely said +lazily. "I heard to-day--" + +"No scandals," interrupted Grant Herman, good humoredly. "You are going +to tell the story about Flackerman, I know." + +The speaker was the most noticeable man in the group. Tom Bently, an +artist, was a tall, swarthy fellow with thin black beard, stubble-like +hair, and a gypsyish look. Next came Fred Rangely, an author of some +reputation, of whom his friends expected great things, rather short in +stature, thick-set, and with a good-tempered, intelligent face. +Fenton's appearance has already been touched upon; he was of elegant +figure, with a face intellectual, high-bred, but marred by a suspicion +of superciliousness. Amid these friends, Herman gained something by +contrast with each and naturally became the center of the group. This +prominence was partly due to his figure, of large mold, finely formed +and firmly knit, carrying always an air of restful strength and +composure which made itself felt in whatever company he found himself. +His head, although not out of proportion with his fine shoulders and +trunk, was somewhat massive, a fact which was emphasized a little by +the profusion of his locks, now plentifully sprinkled with gray. His +face was indicative of much character, the lips firm and full, the eyes +large and dark, now serious under their heavy brows and now twinkling +with contagious merriment. + +"It isn't every model you can talk scandal about," chuckled Bently, in +reply to Herman's remark. "We had a devilishly pretty fuss in Nick +Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the new +model." + +"What new model?" inquired Fenton, arranging himself into an effective +pose before the fire. + +"Do you remember the picture of an Italian girl that Tom Demming sent +to the Academy exhibition two years ago? A homely face with lots of +character in it, and a splendid pose?" + +"You mean the one he called _Marietta?_ It was well done, if I +remember." + +"Oh, stunningly. That's the girl. She's just landed, and Demming gave +her letters to me. She's a staving good model!" + +"But she isn't pretty." + +"No; but she is suggestive. She has one of those faces that you can +make all sorts of things out of. Rollins made a sketch of her head that +is stunning; a lovely thing; and it looked like her too. Then her +figure is perfect, and what is more, she knows how to pose. She meets +an idea half way, you know, and hits the expression wonderfully. She +has given me points for my picture every time she has been at the +studio." + +"Is her name Ninitta?" Grant Herman asked. + +"Yes; do you know any thing about her?" + +"I think I've seen her in Rome. But what is she doing on this side of +the water?" + +To Arthur Fenton's keen perception there seemed more feeling in the +tone than an inquiry into the affairs of a stranger would be likely to +evoke, but he gave the matter no especial thought. + +"Yes," he echoed lightly, "what is she here for? There is no art in +this country. New York is the home of barbarism and Boston of +Philistinism; while Cincinnati is a chromo imitation of both. She'd +better have staid abroad." + +"Your remark is true, Arthur," Bently laughed, "if it isn't very +relevant. What people in this country want isn't art at all, but what +some Great Panjandrum or other abroad has labeled art. They don't know +what is good." + +"That is so true," was the retort, "that I almost wonder they don't buy +your pictures, Tom." + +"But why does the girl come to America?" persisted Herman, with a faint +trace of irritation in his tone. "She could do far better at home." + +"Oh, Demming wrote that she was bound to come. You can never tell what +ails a woman anyhow. Probably she has a lover over here somewhere." + +Herman made no reply save by an involuntary lowering of his heavy +brows, and Rangely brought the conversation back to its starting-point +by asking: + +"But what about Nick Featherstone?" + +"Oh, Nick? Well, Nick tried to kiss her yesterday, and she offered to +stab him with some sort of a devilish dagger arrangement she carries +about like an opera heroine." + +"Featherstone is always a strong temptation to an honest man's boot," +growled Herman out of his beard, as he sat with his head sunk upon his +breast, staring into the fire. + +"They had a scene that wouldn't have done discredit to a first-class +opera-bouffe company," Bently went on, laughing at the remembrance. + +"Nick was fool enough to hollo to somebody in the next room, and the +result was that we all came trooping in like a chorus. It was absurd +enough." + +And he laughed afresh. + +"But the girl?" persisted Grant Herman, not removing his gaze from the +fire. "How did she take it?" + +"Oh, she was as calm and cold as you please. She gathered herself +together and went off without any fuss." + +"I wish when you are done with her, you'd send her round to me," Herman +rejoined. "I want a model for a figure, and if I remember her, she'll +do capitally." + +He rose as he spoke, with the air of a man who intends going home. + +"By the way," Fenton said to him, "isn't the Pagan night next week? +Don't you have it this month?" + +"Yes; you'll get your invitations sometime or other. Good night all." + +"Oh, don't break good company," Rangely remonstrated. "I have half a +bottle here, and I do hate an alcoholic soliloquy." + +But the movement for departure was general, and in a few moments more +the members of the company were wending their individual ways homeward +through the pelting rain. + + + + +III. + +THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT. + Othello; iv.--i. + + +The sun shone brightly in at the windows of a little bare studio next +morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the +night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, +turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over her modeling. + +She seemed to find in her work a joy which accorded well with the +bright day. Pinned to the wall was an improved sketch of the bas-relief +whose design had attracted Fenton's notice in her portfolio, while +before the artist stood a copy in clay, upon which she was working with +those mysterious touches which to the uninitiated are mere meaningless +dabs, yet under which the figures were growing into sightliness and +beauty. + +Suddenly her song was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, +followed by a tap upon her door. + +"Come," she called; and Grant Herman entered in response to the +invitation. + +He carried in his arms a large vase, about whose sides green and golden +dragons coiled themselves in fantastic relief. + +"Your vase came from the kiln," he said, "and I knew you would want to +see it at once. It is the most successful firing they have done here." + +"Oh, I am so glad," she returned, laying down her modeling tools, and +approaching him eagerly. "I was sure there wouldn't be a head or a tail +left by the time the poor monsters came out of the fiery furnace. What +a splendid color that back is! And that golden fin is gorgeous." + +"Yes, Mrs. Greyson," Herman said, "you have produced a veritable +dragon's brood this time. I can almost hear them hiss." + +"Do you know," she responded, smoothing the glittering shapes with half +chary touches. "I should not be wholly willing to have the vase in my +room at night. They might, you know, come to life and go gliding about +in a ghastly way." + +"I always wondered," the sculptor observed, "that Eve had the courage +to talk with the serpent. Do you suppose she squealed when she saw +him?" + +"Oh, no, she probably divined that mischief was brewing, and that +contented her." + +Herman had set the vase where all its gorgeous hues were brought out by +the sun, which sparkled and danced upon every spine and scale of the +writhing monsters. He walked away from it to observe the effect at a +greater distance. + +"There is no pleasure like that of creating," he said. "Man is a god +when he can look on his work and pronounce it good." + +"Which is seldom," she returned, "unless in the one instant after its +completion when we still see what we intended rather than what we have +made." + +"It is fortunate our work cannot rise up to reproach us for the wide +difference between our intents and our performances. Fancy one of my +statues taking me to task because it hasn't the glory it had in my +brain." + +"It is on that account," Mrs. Greyson said smiling, "that I fancy +Galatea must have been most uncomfortable to live with. Whenever +Pygmalion found fault, she had always the retort ready: 'At least I am +exactly what you chose to make me.' Poor Pygmalion!" + +"It was no more true than in the case of every man that marries; we all +bow down to ideals, I suppose. Except," he added with a little +hesitation, "myself, of course." + +The words were somewhat awkward in the hesitating accent which gave +them a suggestiveness at which the faintest of flushes mounted to her +cheek. She bent her observations more closely on the vase. + +"It is fired so much better than the last miserable failure," observed +she, going to a shelf and reaching after a dusty vase, massive and +fantastic, which had been ruined in the kiln. + +"Let me help you," Herman said. + +But she had already loosened the vase, which proved heavier than she +expected, and it was only by darting forward, and throwing his arms +about her, that the sculptor was enabled to save her from a severe +blow. The vase fell crashing to the floor, breaking into heavy shards, +rattling the windows and the casts upon the wall by the concussion. + +An exclamation escaped him. He had drawn Mrs. Greyson backward, and for +a brief instant, held her in his strong clasp. It was an accident which +to mere acquaintances might mean nothing; to lovers, every thing. +Herman was for a moment pale with the fear that Helen might be injured; +then the hot blood surged into his cheeks as he released his hold and +stepped back, He bent over the fragments of the vase that she might not +see his face, and by so doing, as he reflected afterward, he failed to +perceive what was her expression. He straightened himself with an +impetuous movement, and came a step nearer. + +"How can you be so careless?" he demanded, almost with irritation. "It +might have killed you." + +"I did not remember that it was so heavy," she returned, a little pale +and panting. "Do you think I was trying to pull it on my head? I am +very much obliged, though. You have saved me a heavy blow at least. +There is not much left of that unlucky vase. It was always +ill-starred." + +"All's well that ends well," returned the sculptor, sufficiently +recovering his self-control to speak lightly; "only don't run such a +risk another time." + +"Oh, I assure you," she replied, "I do not make my vases either to +break my head or to be broken themselves. I shall take better care of +this one, you may be confident." + +"I was more concerned for yourself than for the vase." + +"For myself it really does not so much matter." + +"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so." + +"Oh,--my friends!" + +Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom or +exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of +interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares +of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant +and perplexing. + +She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the +modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand reflections +danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in the +sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of +jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as +the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling +spines. + +"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed, +twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother +Eve, do you think?" + +"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd +brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the +occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of +it." + +A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand +abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her with +a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The +movement touched her companion as no words could have done. + +"I beg your pardon," he muttered. + +And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly +and quitted the room. + + + + +IV. + +AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT. + Henry VIII.; i.--3. + + +"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur, +that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to +at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the +unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the +wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw +it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago." + +"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never +be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; +and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far +off that I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is +imminent at all." + +"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a +pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is +advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom." + +"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it +altogether until it comes." + +"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll +find when the day of doom swoops down on you." + +They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery +of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe +by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a +little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the +errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being +accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this +might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before their +marriage. + +She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet +representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton +sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, +then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her. + +"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he +remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an +irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out +the catch-penny hand of a beggar." + +"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that +is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real goddess has her +temples here." + +"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the +way you mean." + +A shadow passed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him. + +"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly +about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at +first, but you--" + +"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the +conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma +petite_. Don't mind it." + +"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter +talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--" + +She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because +her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might +offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly +avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new +channel. + +"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are +only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of +questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised +Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here +twice that time already." + +He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and +down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her +face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real +importance to her. + +"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they +descended the wide staircase. + +She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way +collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a +somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed +deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm, +impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with +lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was +placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more +than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the +shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless +eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still +keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer. + +Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have +stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a +way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed. + +"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How +much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give +us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she +would but condescend to speak." + +"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling. + +"But Pasht belies her sex by not being a communicative party," was her +companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a +characteristic of the gods." + +"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even +for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your +cat-headed goddess?" + +"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she +has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the +goddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort +of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose." + +"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith +said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag +from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty. + +"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the +tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of +minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for +this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the +figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but +may come to blows any time." + +He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the +conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr. +Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a +woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the +statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was +waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking: + +"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--" + +"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he +were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further +from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name +by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month +in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no +organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently +puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply. + +"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and +surreptitiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your sex. I'll +come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by." + +He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his +own way. + + + + +V. + +THE BITTER PAST. + All's Well that Ends Well; v.--3. + + +"The Pagans: Friday, Jan. 17. +Pipes, pictures and punch. + GRANT HERMAN." + + +Such was the invitation received one day by each of the Pagans, under a +seal bearing the impress of the goddess Pasht. + +There is little that need be added to Fenton's account of the Pagans. +The society had no organization beyond a rule to meet each month and to +limit its membership to seven; no especial principles beyond an +unformulated although by no means unexpressed antagonism against +Philistinism. Fenton had suggested Pasht as a sort of _dea mater_, +and had furnished the seal bearing the image of that goddess which it +was customary to use upon the notifications of meetings; and for the +rest there was nothing definite to distinguish this group of earnest +and sometimes fiery young men from any other. They doubtless said a +great many foolish things, but they did so many wise ones that it +seemed but reasonable to assume that there must be some grains of +wisdom mingled with whatever dross was to be found in their speech. + +Their views were extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining +astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try +the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were +restrained by any conventionality from a free expression of opinion. + +It was on the afternoon of the day fixed for the Pagan meeting when +Helen Greyson took her way across the Common and through the business +portion of the city to the building down by the wharves where were the +studios of Herman and his pupils. It was feebly raining, the weather +having been decidedly whimsical all that week, and the clouds rolled in +ragged, sullen masses overhead. Helen felt the gloom of the day as a +vague depression which she endeavored in vain to shake off, and +hastened towards her studio, hoping to be able to lose herself in her +work. + +Picking her steps among the piles of fire-brick and terra-cotta which +lumbered the yard and the long shed skirting the building, which was a +terra-cotta manufactory, she let herself in at a side door and went +directly to her studio. + +Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment +studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to +work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition. + +She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon +the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer +to her invitation, Grant Herman entered. + +He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse +bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in +an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, +giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in +his eye harmonized well. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then +stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence. + +"Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil +asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that +despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in +the best of spirits. + +"No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation +in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify +those folds--so." + +As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. +Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and +without thought she said, involuntarily: + +"You have a new ring!" + +"Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an +intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in +Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and +at his death he in turn sent it back to me." + +"But Hoffmeir has been dead several years." + +"More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands." + +The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, +and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the +exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its +origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save +that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal +bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from +the awakening of memories connected with it. + +"It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it +does, so long after Hoffmeir's death." + +"It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with +it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you +can send no answer!" + +The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. +Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having +never before seen him so deeply moved. + +"I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said seemed +intrusive, though of course it was not meant to be." + +"It did not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent +my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." + +"I hope nothing bad has happened," said Helen, quickly. + +"No, nothing; it's only this message from dear old Hoffmeir." + +He walked away and pulled aside the curtain which screened the lower +half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a +vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her +modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how +best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved +inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy +walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of +the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, +and from that turned toward the robust form by the window. + +"Come, Mr. Herman," she said at length, in a tone half jesting, "I +never saw you so somber." + +"It is not that Hoffmeir is dead, poor fellow!" Herman replied, +answering her unspoken question. "I'd made up my mind to endure that, +and any man with his over-sensitive temperament is better off on the +other side of the grass than this any day. I may as well tell you, Mrs. +Greyson, though as a rule I do not find much comfort in blurting out +things. The fact is that Hoffmeir and I quarreled over a girl. We were +both in love with her, like two young fools as we were; but she'd +promised to marry me, and--it was a deal better that she didn't, too. I +thought he tried to take her from me. Now I know I was wrong, and that +Fritz was as high-souled as a god in the matter; but then I sent him +back his ring, and broke off with him and her too. I was a fiery young +fool in those days," he added, with a sad and bitter smile, "a young +fool." + +"And was it never explained?" + +"Never until to-day. He was far too proud a man to call me back." + +"But the girl?" queried Helen, with increasing eagerness. "What did she +do?" + +"Oh, the girl," he repeated, turning away again and directing his gaze +out of the window; "what would you expect her to do? She was only a +peasant; and though I was honest enough then, I outgrew that fever +centuries ago." + +"Yes, you did," returned Helen, with gentle persistence, "but what did +she do?" + +"What do women usually do when they break with one lover? Get another, +I suppose!" + +The words were so hard and coarse to come from a man like Grant Herman +that she involuntarily looked up quickly at him, and perhaps he noticed +the action. + +It was evident that some deep pain had provoked the expression, yet had +found no relief in the rough words. The sculptor turned toward his +companion as if to speak. Then slowly his eyes fell, and he said +firmly, if a little stiffly: + +"I believe I do her injustice. If she ever loved a man she was one who +would love him always." + +He left the little room without more words, his firm, even tread +sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio +was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay +wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in +thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to +give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her +bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she passed +the door of Herman's studio the sculptor opened it. + +"I do not know," he said, extending his hand, "what made me so rude +this afternoon. I am a bear of a fellow, but I had meant to treat you +well." + +He had fully recovered his composure, but his evident desire to efface +the impression he had made naturally rendered it more lasting in +Helen's mind. + + + + +VI. + +A BOND OF AIR. + Troilus and Cressida; i.--3. + + +Had Helen been present at the scene which took place in Herman's studio +earlier in the afternoon, she would perhaps have wondered less at his +disturbance. + +In response to the sculptor's request made at the Club when Ninitta's +name was first mentioned, Bently, when the girl finished posing for +him, sent her to the sculptor's studio. + +She came a day or two later than Bently had directed her, not +hastening, although for six years she had shaped her entire life to the +end of meeting Grant Herman. She came into the studio as calmly and as +quietly as if it were some familiar place which she had left but +yesterday, and she greeted the sculptor with as even and musical tone +as in the old Roman days when as yet nothing had occurred to stir her +peaceful bosom. + +For his part the man stood and looked at her in silence. Even when a +ghost from the past has appeared at his especial summons, one seldom +sees it unmoved, and Herman was conscious that his heart beat more +quickly, that he breathed more heavily as Ninitta let fall behind her +the rug _portiere_ and came towards him through the studio. + +She had a dark, homely face, only redeemed from positive ugliness by +her deep, expressive eyes. Her figure was superb; rather slender, lithe +and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was +long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep +of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably +adapted to display the lines of her supple form. As she walked down the +studio, setting her feet firmly and carrying her head with fine poise, +Grant Herman felt the ghost of an old passion stir in his heart. + +"How do you do?" he composedly answered her greeting. "You have +improved since I saw you last." + +"Thank you," she said, in a rich voice with strong but pleasant accent. +"I have had time." + +"But improvement is not always a question of time," returned he. "Look +at me." + +"You have grown old," Ninitta commented, regarding him keenly. "You are +gray now." + +"Yes," retorted the other lightly, "I am an old man." It is really a +very long time since you posed for me in my little den at Rome." + +"You remember those days perhaps, sometimes?" she said, dropping the +long lashes over her eyes. + +A shadow passed over Herman's high brow. + +"Is one likely to forget such days?" he demanded. "Is one likely to +forget how love may be turned to treachery and--" + +"Pardon," the woman interrupted with dignity. "I did not come to be +reproached, _eccelenza_. You have not forgotten Signor Hoffmeir?" + +"No," he answered, with a deepening frown. "I have not forgotten the +man who pretended to be my friend and proved it by stealing my +betrothed." + +"It is well that you have not forgotten," Ninitta went on calmly, but +earnestly, "for I have a message from him. He charged me when he was +dying," she added, crossing herself, "to give it to you with my own +hands. I have been waiting for all these years, but now I am free of my +promise." + +Herman took the packet she extended toward him, and turned abruptly +away. Ninitta seated herself in one of the tall easy chairs, removed +her hat, and began a leisurely survey of the place. The sounds from the +wharf outside, the cries of the sailors, the creaking of the cordage +and the ships came softened and mellowed like the daylight into the +wide, dim studio, giving a certain sense of remoteness by the contrast +they suggested between the silence within and the stir of the world +without. For all her outward calm, Ninitta's heart was beating hotly, +and she longed with a great yearning for a touch from the hand of the +silent man before her; for a word of kindness from his lips. She +watched him furtively, under cover of looking at a cast of Celini's +Perseus upon a bracket above his head, as he stood reading the letter +from Hoffmeir. + +"Why did you not bring this to me before?" the sculptor asked at +length, turning towards her. "It is six years now." + +"Have I been able to shape my life?" returned Ninitta. "I have followed +you to Florence, to Paris; you came to America. I followed you to New +York; you were here. I have never ceased trying to reach you. It was +not easy for me to cross half the world alone and without help; with no +friends, no money; with nothing." + +"But you have been in Boston a couple of months." + +"Yes," she said quietly, looking up into his face. "But you knew it. I +waited for you to send for me." + +"I have only known it a week," was the sculptor's reply. "Do you know +what was in Hoffmeir's letter?" + +"His ring; the one you wore in Rome." + +"But do you know what he wrote?" + +"No," she answered. "How should I?" + +Her questioner looked at her a moment in silence. She put up her head +proudly with an involuntary response to the questioning which his +silence implied, and met his eyes unflinchingly. Yet he put his thought +into words. + +"It is seven years since I saw you," he said at length. + +"It is seven years," she echoed. + +"In seven years a great deal may happen," continued he, still regarding +her closely. + +"Much, much has happened," she returned, still meeting his gaze without +shrinking. + +"Are you married?" he asked, with a certain abruptness which to a +careful observer might have indicated that the question cost him an +effort. + +"No," Ninitta returned simply; "how could I be when I was betrothed to +you?" + +"But that was broken off--" + +The sentence stuck in his throat; and he wondered that he could have +begun it. He wondered, too, how he could even have doubted the faith of +the woman before him; and most of all he wondered if he had ever really +loved her. He had an irritating consciousness that something was +expected of him which he was unwilling to give; some sign of +tenderness, some caress such as befitted the reconciliation of lovers +long separated by misunderstanding and blinding jealousy. He felt as if +he were falling below the demands of the occasion, most annoying of +sensations to the masculine mind. But an important interview can with +difficulty be changed from the key in which it is begun, and even had +his feelings prompted a display of tenderness, he felt that it would +seem abrupt and forced. He waited for Ninitta to speak. + +"Yes," she said, after a moment, as he did not continue, "it was broken +off, but Signor Hoffmeir said that was because you did not understand, +and that everything would be as it had been when you got his letter." + +A sad hopelessness began to appear in her eyes; she had of old been too +accustomed to submit to her lover's will to assume the initiative now, +despite the development and strength which time had given to her +character. The sculptor did not dream how her heart throbbed beneath +her quiet demeanor, but he was too sensitive not to be touched by the +unconscious appeal of her voice and look. + +Seven years before, an enthusiastic student in Rome, he had loved or +believed he loved, the peasant girl Ninitta, whom he had found in an +excursion to Capri and induced to come to the Eternal City as a model. + +Too honorable to betray her, he had meant to make the model his wife, +and was betrothed to her with a solemnity of which he was keenly +reminded to-day by the ring which she still wore upon her finger. +Circumstances had convinced him, however, that Ninitta was deceiving +him, and that she preferred the artist Hoffmeir, his best friend. To +break off both engagement and friendship without listening to a word +of explanation, to leave Rome and Italy, were comparatively easy for a +passionate man stung to the quick by a double treachery. To forget was +more difficult, and although a thousand times had Herman assured +himself that he had extinguished the last spark of emotion concerning +this episode, the faintest breath of an old memory was still sufficient +to rekindle some seemingly dead ember. To-day, holding in his hand the +letter from his lost friend which removed all his doubts, he saw that +instead of being injured he had himself been cruel and unjust; he felt +the full anguish of having committed an irreparable fault. We may +outlive our past; its sorrows we may forget, its wrongs we may forgive, +we may even smile at its crushed hopes, ambitions and loves with +scarcely a tinge of bitterness; but that which we have been stings us +ever with the burning pain of an undying remorse. It is not what we +have done which awakens our deepest self-scorn; it is the fact that we +were this which made it possible for us to do it. To feel that he had +been capable of the cruelty of abandoning his betrothed and of wounding +his closest friend, merely from a groundless suspicion, was to Grant +Herman a pain never to be wholly outlived. + +Nor was he without a teasing pain, through a less noble trait in his +nature, from the consciousness that he had loved Ninitta. Once the +fires of love have burned out, any mortal is apt to be lost in amazed +wonderment how they were ever kindled; and that it was hard for Grant +Herman, at thirty-five, to understand how Grant Herman, at +twenty-seven, could have adored an Italian peasant model is not so +without precedent as to be wholly incomprehensible. + +Ninitta had been a good girl, his thoughts ran, was doubtless so still; +her figure was enchanting, he would have been no sculptor had he failed +to appreciate that; he had been a boy, a foolish youngster to be +dizzied by a rushing of the blood to his head; but to make her his wife +now---- + +"Ninitta," he said, suddenly, breaking off from his thoughts into +words, "I am not well to-day: come to-morrow. Are you comfortably +settled in town? Do you need money?" + +"No," she answered, rising, "I do not want money." + +She went slowly down the studio without further word, only turning back +as she passed Bently's picture for which she had posed, and which had +been brought for the meeting of the Pagans. + +"You have seen," she said, "I am able to earn. I have learned much +while I was bringing you that letter. Across the world is a long way. +No; I have no need of money." + + + + +VII. + +IN WAY OF TASTE. + Troilus and Cressida; iii.--3. + + +Grant Herman's studio, in which the Pagans met that night, was in +its way no less unique than the company there gathered. It was a +great, misshapen place, narrow, half a hundred feet long, and +disproportionately high, with undressed brick walls and cement floor. +The upper half of one of the end walls was taken up with large windows, +before which were drawn dingy curtains. Here and there about the place +were scattered modeling stands, water tanks mounted upon rude tripods, +casts, and the usual lumber of a sculptor's studio; while upon the +walls were stuck pictures, sketches, and reproductions in all sorts of +capricious groupings. + +In one corner a flight of stairs led to a gallery high up against the +wall, over the rude railing of which looked the heads of a couple of +legless statues. From this gallery the stairs continued to ascend until +a door near the roof was reached, leading to unknown regions well up in +the building behind which the studio had been built as an afterthought. +On shelves were confusedly disposed dusty bits of bronze, plaster, +coarse pottery and rare glass; things valueless and things beyond price +standing in careless fellowship. A canvas of Corot looked down upon a +grotesque, grimacing Japanese idol, a beautiful bronze reproduction of +a vase by Michael Angelo stood shoulder to shoulder with a bean-pot +full of tobacco; a crumpled cravat was thrown carelessly over the arm +of a dancing faun, while a cluster of Barye's matchless animals were +apparently making their way with great difficulty through a collection +of pipes, broken modeling tools, faded flowers and loose papers. Every +where it was evident that the studio of Herman differed from heaven in +at least its first law. + +Quite in keeping with the picturesque, richly stored room, was the +group of men walking about the place or seated near the rough table +upon which refreshments were placed. On this table were a couple of +splendid punch-bowls of antique cut glass, which, if not full now, had +unmistakable marks of having been so earlier in the evening. A coarse +dish of yellow earthen ware beside them held an ample supply of +biscuits, and was in turn flanked by a couple of plates of cheese. +Fruit, beer, and tobacco in various forms, with abundant glasses and +pipes, completed the furnishing of the board, upon which a newspaper +supplied the place of a cloth. + +Tom Bently's long, shapely limbs were disposed in a big easy-chair by +the table, his tongue being just now employed in one of his not +infrequent harangues upon art, his remarks being plentifully spiced +with profanity. + +"Whatever crazy ideas on art," Bently was saying, "aren't good for any +thing else have to be put into a book. The surest recommendation in art +circles is getting out a book or giving a rubbishy lecture. Every woman +who has painted a few bunches of flowers or daubed a little pottery, +writes a book to tell how she did it; as if it were the most +astonishing thing in the world." + +"Women are very like hens," interpolated Fenton; "they always cackle +most over the smallest egg." + +"If any one of the crew," continued Bently, "could appreciate a +fiftieth part of the suggestions in a single sketch of an old master, +she might have something to write about." + +"But then she would know enough to keep still," said Rangely. + +"Oh, a woman never knows enough to keep still," Bently retorted. "It is +damned amusing to hear the average American----" + +A chorus of protestations arose. + +"We'll have nothing about the 'Average American,' Bently!" + +"Start somebody else on his hobby," suggested Ainsworth; "that's the +only way to choke Bently off. Where's Fenton? I never knew him quiet +for so long in my life." + +Arthur had been watching his companions and smoking in silence. He +smiled brilliantly at Ainsworth's challenge. + +"I'm overwhelmed by Bently's oaths," he said. "He outdoes himself +to-night." + +"When it comes time for Tom's epitaph," observed Rangely, "I shall +suggest that it be a dash." + +"Why do you swear so?" inquired Ainsworth. "Don't you think it in +execrable taste?" + +"Taste?" laughed Bently. "Yes; it's so far above all taste as to be a-- +sight higher and bigger." + +"I make a distinction," Herman put in good naturedly, "between swearing +and blasphemy; and Tom never blasphemes. His cursing is all in the +interest of the highest virtues." + +"Profanity is like smoking," added Tom. "Every thing depends upon how +you do it. The English, for instance, smoke for the brutality of the +thing; they never have any of the French _finesse,_ and their +smoking is nothing less than a crime. But as the Arabs smoke it is one +of the loftiest virtues; there's something godlike about it. + +"It is from smoking," Fenton chimed in, "that the Orientals learned how +to treat women; for a woman is like tobacco, the aroma should be +enjoyed and the ashes thrown away." + +"By George!" exclaimed one of the Pagans, moved by some rare +compunction to remember that he had a wife at home, "that's infamous, +Arthur." + +"It is my belief," observed Ainsworth deliberately, "that Fenton lies +awake nights to invent beastly things to say about women, and when he +gets something that he thinks is smart he throws it into the +conversation any where, without the slightest regard to whether it fits +or not." + +"What makes you so bitter against women?" asked Bently. + +"Yes," added Rangely, with mock deprecation. "Why do you want to +annihilate the sex? What harm have women ever done to you?" + +"Oh," retorted the artist, "it is on theoretical principles, purely. I +adore that masculine ideal which man calls woman, but only finds in his +brain. The highest on earth is reached only by the absolute elimination +of the feminine. Ah! man is at his best in war," he went on, his +attitude becoming less studied and more forcible, as he allowed his +intellectual interest to overpower his vanity; "there he is all +masculine; man without the limitations that the presence of woman +imposes upon him. There woman is ignored, and even if she has been the +cause of the war--and to be the cause of war is woman's noblest +prerogative!--she is for the time being as completely forgotten as if +she had never existed. She slips into oblivion as does the horn of grog +which gives his courage." + +Fenton was in a mood when he fancied he was talking well, a conviction +which was not always an accurate measure of the real worth of his +remarks. He delighted in presenting half truths in forcible +phraseology, relishing the taste of an epigram quite without reference +to its verity. He amused himself and his friends with talk more or less +brilliant, of which no one knew better than himself the fallacy, but +whose cleverness atoned with him for all defects. The intellectual +excitement of giving free rein to his fancy and his tongue was +dangerously pleasant to Arthur, who often more than half convinced +himself of the verity of his extravagant theories, and oftener still +involved himself in their defense by yielding to the mere whim of +phrasing them effectively. + +"You are on your high horse to-night, Fenton," cried Rangely, "you make +no more of a metaphor than a racer of a hurdle." + +"Don't stop him," Ainsworth said. "Let him run the course out now he's +on the track." + +"When man comes into his kingdom," Fenton broke out again, too fully +aroused to mind the banter, yet with a sort of double consciousness +enjoying the absurdity of the whole conversation, "when man comes into +his kingdom, when we get to the perfection of the race, there will be +no women. The ultimate man will be masculine--men, only men; gloriously +and eternally masculine!" "But how will the race perpetuate itself?" +asked Tom in as matter of fact a tone as he might have inquired the +time of day. + +"Perpetuate itself!" blazed the other. "The race will not need to +perpetuate itself. The world will be peopled with gods! When once women +are gone the race will have become immortal!" + +A shout of mingled applause and derision greeted this outburst, amid +which Fenton threw himself back in a lounging chair and lighted a fresh +cigar. He was intoxicated with himself, and few draughts are more +dangerous. + +"Take to the lecture platform, Fenton," jeered Ainsworth. "You'll make +your mark in the world yet." + +"I wonder you stopped at immortality," remarked Fred Rangely. "You +usually go on to dispose of the future state." + +"Impossible," retorted the artist, "for you never heard me say I +believed in one." + +"That's a fact," confessed the other, "but you insist so emphatically +that women have no moral sense that your philosophy certainly would +dispose of them if it allow any future state." + +"For my part," declared Herman, "I've heard Fenton talk nonsense as +long as I want to; let's look at the pictures." + +An informal exhibition had been arranged, consisting of pictures loaned +by friends, and including several by members of the club. The most +important of the latter was a gypsy which Bently had just completed, +and which exhibited that artist's defects and excellences in the +emphatic manner usual with his productions. The _motif_ was better +than the _technique_, but Bently's splendid feeling for color +somehow carried him through, and made the picture not only striking but +rich and suggestive. + +"If you could learn to draw, Tom," Fenton said, as they stood looking +at it, "you'd be the biggest man in America." + +"Is that the new model you were talking about?" asked Rangely. + +"Yes," Bently answered. "Isn't she a stunner?" + +"I thought that shoulder was something new," put in Fenton. "The girl +poses well; trust a woman with shoulders like that to know how to +display them." + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Grant Herman in sudden and rare irritation, +"can you never have done slurring at women? Didn't you have a mother? +In heaven's name let some woman escape your tongue for her sake!" + +Such an outburst from their host produced a profound sensation upon the +Pagans. The most tolerant of men, he was accustomed to listen to their +wholesale denunciations of all things with a good natured smile, +contenting himself with a calm contradiction now and then. Proverbial +for his patience and good temper, he produced the greater sensation now +when he gave vent to his anger upon a subject which not only Fenton but +every guest present usually considered fair game. + +"I'm sorry I vexed you, Herman," Fenton said, turning to him after a +moment's silence, "but however much I've abused women, you never heard +me blackguard a woman in your life." + +"You are right," the sculptor replied, catching the other's slender +hand in his stalwart grasp. "I beg your pardon. I'm out of sorts, I +suppose, or I shouldn't be quarreling like a Christian. Let's brew a +new bowl and drink to Pagan harmony." + + + + +VIII. + +THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; ii.--7. + + +After the Pagans had separated that night Fred Rangely lingered in +Herman's studio. + +The sculptor somehow found it possible to be more frank with Rangely +than with any other of his companions, and although there was a +difference of some half a dozen in the count of their years, and +perhaps more in their ages as measured by experiences, Herman's strong +but naturally stormy nature found much pleasure in the calm philosophy +of his friend. + +Scarcely were the two men alone, when Rangely turned to his host and +demanded abruptly: + +"Now, I want to know, Grant, what in the devil is the matter with you +to-night? What set you out to pitch into Fenton so?" + +Herman poured out a glass of wine and swallowed it before replying. + +"Because I am a damned idiot!" he retorted savagely. "I'm all shaken +up, Fred; and the worst of it is that I don't see any way out of the +snare I'm in." + +"It isn't real trouble, I hope." + +"Isn't it! By Jove!" cried the sculptor, "the more honest a man is in +this world the worse off he is. If I hadn't had a conscience when I was +a young fellow, I should be all right now. Who is it--Fenton?--that is +always saying that he asks forgiveness for his virtues and thanks the +gods for every vice he can cultivate?" + +"Well," Rangely remarked, filling a pipe, and curiously surveying his +companion, who was raging up and down the studio, "you don't seem to be +in an especially cheerful and enlivening frame of mind; that's a fact. +If a fellow can be of any help, call on; if not, at least try to take +it a little more gently for the sake of your friends." + +"Do any thing?" retorted the other. "No; there's nothing to be done. +I'm a fool." + +"Even that disease has been remedied before now," Rangely said coolly;" +though usually experience and time are necessary to the cure." + +"I'll tell you the whole story," Herman exclaimed, flinging himself +into a chair. "It is all simple enough. It is always simple enough to +tangle things up so that Lucifer himself cannot unsnarl them. When I +was in Rome I was in love--crazily, gushingly in love, you understand, +like a big schoolboy--with a girl I found in Capri. She was a good +little thing, with a figure like Helen's; that's what did the business +for me. I coaxed her to Rome to be my model, and then that infernal +conscience of mine made me ask her to marry me. I could have done any +thing I liked with her; I knew that; she had nobody to look after her +but a half sister who paid about as much attention to her as if she had +been a grasshopper. But the infernal New England Puritanism in my blood +wouldn't let me hurt her." + +"And somebody else wasn't so scrupulous?" asked the listener as his +friend paused in his story. + +"You think so?" returned Herman eagerly. "Then I wasn't so unutterably +a scoundrel for thinking so, too, was I? I did doubt her; I had reason +to. She posed for a friend of mine, a painter; you know, of course-- +Hang it! What's the use of going into all the details. I was poor as a +church mouse or she shouldn't have done it at all, even for him. The +gist of the story is that I was jealous and flew out at both of them, +and left Rome in a rage!" + +The two men sat in silence for some moments. Rangely puffed vigorously +at his pipe, while his companion stared savagely into the shadows in +the further end of the studio. Neither looked at the other; the hearer +appreciated too well the shame-facedness by which these unusual +confidences must be accompanied. From some distant steeple a clock was +faintly heard striking two. + +"And to-day," Herman at length began again in an altered voice, "to-day +she came here. She has followed me all these years, going through +heaven knows what experiences and hardships, to bring me the proof that +I was a madman blinded by groundless jealousy, and that instead of +being wronged I cursedly abused both her and poor dead old Hoffmeir." + +Again there came an interval of silence. A lamp flickered and went out +with a muffled sound. The thoughts of both men were of that formless +character scarcely to be distinguished from emotions; on the one hand +sad and remorseful, on the other sympathetic and pitiful. + +"Well?" Rangely ventured after a time. + +"But what shall I do?" demanded Herman. "I cannot marry her." + +"No, of course not. She cannot expect it after banging about the +world." + +"Oh, it isn't that," the other said hastily. "She is as good and as +pure as when I left her; at least I believe so. And she does expect +it." + +"She does expect it!" echoed his friend. "Ah!" + +The reception of a confidence is a most delicate ordeal through which +few people come unscathed. Rare individuals are born with the ready +sympathies, quick apprehension, and exquisite tact needful; but the +vast majority are sure to wound their friends if the latter ever +venture to approach with their armor of reticence laid wholly aside. + +Although perhaps not the ideal confidant, Rangely was sympathetic and +possessed of at least sufficient discretion to avoid comment until he +knew the whole situation and was sure that his opinion was desired. He +was still unable fully to understand his friend's agitation, the task +of disposing of an old sweetheart in so inferior a position not +appearing to his easy-going nature a matter sufficiently difficult to +warrant so deep disquiet. + +Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he +was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most +secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a +savage sense of doing penance by the self-inflicted torture. + +"Yes," he repeated, "she expects it. Why shouldn't she, poor thing? She +has not changed, and she does not understand that I may have altered." + +"And you have?" + +Grant Herman looked up and down the great studio, now growing dusky +from the burning out of candles here and there. An antique lamp which +was lighted only on special occasions stood where the breeze came to it +from the high window, and the flame, wind-swept, smoked and flared. +Through the silence the listener's ear could detect a faint sound of +the tide washing against the piles of the wharf outside. + +The sculptor started up suddenly and stood firmly, throwing back his +splendid head and shoulders, and looking straight into the eyes of his +friend. + +"Yes," he said in a clear, low voice. "I have changed. I---There is +some one else." + +"Life," remarked Rangely, with seeming irrelevancy, "life is a +fallacy." + +"I'd like to be honorable," Herman continued, "but how can I? It is +impossible to be honest to both her and myself. If I hadn't had any +scruples, then---Bah! What a beast I am! Poor Ninitta." + +Still Rangely smoked in silence, and the sculptor went on again. + +"It has always been my creed that when a man has allowed a woman to +love him--much more, made her love him, as I did--he is a black-hearted +knave to let a change in himself wreck her happiness. Now I am put to +the test." + +"And the other one?" asked Rangely. "Does she know that you care for +her?" + +"I have never said so to her. Heaven only knows how much she feels by +intuition. A man always fancies that the woman he loves can tell." + +"That may depend something on how often you see her." "I see her +nearly every day. She is my pupil." + +"Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Yes," Herman said, a little defiantly, as if now the secret was told +he challenged the right of another man to share it. + +"Is she a widow?" + +"Yes," the other answered, with no perceptible pause, and yet between +the question and his reply had come to him the swift remembrance that +he really knew nothing of his pupil's life or history, and had simply +taken it for granted that her husband was not living. "Arthur Fenton +brought her here," he added, rather thinking aloud than answering any +point of Rangely's query. "He was an old friend of her husband." + +"But what will you do with the other?" + +Instead of replying Herman got up from the seat into which he had flung +himself, and went about the studio putting out the lights. + +"Go home," he said with a whimsical smile. "I'm sure I don't know what +we are talking about at this time of the morning. As for what I shall +do--Well, time will show; I am as ignorant as yourself on the subject." + + + + +IX. + +VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE. + Comedy of Errors; ii.--i. + + +It suited Fenton's whim next morning to dine with Mrs. Greyson. He had +established the habit of dropping in when he chose, always sure of a +welcome, and always sure, too, of a listener to the tirades in which he +was fond of indulging. If Helen did not always accord him agreement, +she at least gave attention, and he cared rather to talk than to +convince. + +His aesthetic taste, moreover, was gratified by the pretty breakfast +table; and he was not without a subtle sense of pleasure in the beauty +and harmonious dress of his hostess, who possessed the rare charm of +contriving to be always well attired. This morning she wore a gown of +russet cashmere with here and there knots of dull gold ribbon, which +tint formed a pleasing link between the stuff and the color of her +clear skin. + +"It is good of you to come," she said, as she poured his coffee. "There +are so few days left before you will have married a wife and cannot +come. I shall miss you very much." + +"Why do you persist in talking in that way?" + +Fenton returned. "I'm not going out of the country or out of the world. +You could not take a more absolute farewell if I were about to be +cremated." + +"You do not know," replied she, smiling. "However, I am glad you are to +be married. It will do you good. You need a wife, if you do dread +matrimony so much." + +"It is abominable," he observed deliberately, "to talk as I do. Of +course I do not mind what you choose to think of me; or rather I am +sure you will not misunderstand." + +"I do not," Mrs. Greyson interpolated significantly. + + "But it seems a reflection upon Miss Caldwell," he continued, +answering her interruption only by a grimace, "for me to discourse of +marriage just as I do. It isn't because I'm not fond of her. It is my +protest against the absurd and false way in which society regards +marriage; in a word against marriage itself." + +Mrs. Greyson understood Arthur Fenton as well as any woman can +understand a man who is her friend. Her friendship softened the +harshness of her judgments, but she could not be blind to his vanity, +his constant efforts at self-deception, and so far as she was in +possession of the facts, she reasoned correctly in regard to his +approaching marriage. + +"No," she said calmly, "it isn't even that. You talk partly for the +sake of saying things that sound effective, and partly because you are +morbid from over introspection. If you were vicious, I should say you +did it as an atonement. Many people would not understand you, but as +I do, it is harmless for you to talk to me." + +"Introspective? Of course. Can any body help being that in this age? +And as for being morbid--it all depends upon definitions. I try to be +honest with myself." + +"The subtlest form of hypocrisy," she answered, "often consists in what +we call being honest with ourselves. I gave that up long ago. You are +not honest with yourself about this marriage. If you don't wish to +marry Miss Caldwell, who forces you to do so?" + +"Forces me to? Good heavens! I do wish to marry her. Of course I don't +ever expect to be perfectly happy. In this inexplicable world natures +that demand that every thing shall be explained must necessarily remain +unsatisfied. Still, I'd take a little more coffee as a palliation of my +lot, if you please." + +"It is well you are to marry," observed Helen, refilling his cup. +"You've concentrated your attention upon yourself too long." + +"But I am afraid of poverty. If I find some old Boston duffer with a +lot of money, and can fool him into admiring the frame of one of my +pictures, he may buy it, and I can pay the butcher, the baker and the +gas man for a week. If I can't, I must daub the canvas a little higher +and try the same game in New York, and--" + +"Rubbish!" she interrupted. "The difficulty is, you are too +self-indulgent. You are too much afraid of the little discomforts." + +"No," he answered; "men--at least sensitive men--do not suffer so much +from the discomforts of poverty as from its indignities." + +"If--" began Helen; but without finishing, she rose from the table, +went to the window and stood looking out. + +Fenton watched her idly, knowing perfectly that the woman before him +was capable of sacrificing for him all the little income which was +her's; and he wondered, as men will, how deep her feeling for him had +really become, and whether it had ever passed that mysterious and +undefinable line which separates love from friendship. + +Helen had often endeavored to assist the artist out of some financial +difficulty by buying one of his unsellable pictures, a pretext which he +had the grace to put aside by refusing to sell, sometimes sending her +as a gift precisely the work for which he could most easily find a +purchaser. There was continually a silent struggle, more or less +consciously carried on between the two, although seldom appearing upon +the surface. Too much Fenton's friend not to be pained by his +weaknesses, Helen was stung to the quick by a certain insincerity +which she often detected alike beneath his raillery and his cynicism. +Too noble to yield to any belief in a friend's unworthiness without +resistance, she suffered anew whenever his words seemed to ring false, +and now there were tears in her eyes as she looked out into the sunny +street. She pressed them firmly back, however, and turned a calm face +towards her guest, who sat playing with his spoon and watching her with +a half troubled, half amused expression. + +"I've composed my epitaph," he said irrelevantly. "Will you please +compose my monument." + +"Oh, willingly. But it will be necessary to know the epitaph, so that +the monument may express the same sentiment." + +"I shall have no name," Arthur returned. "Only-- + _L'homme est mort. Soit_. +How does that strike you?" + +"Ah," she cried impulsively, "how does any thing strike me? You play at +being wretched as sentimental school girls do, when in their case it is +slate pencils and pickled limes and in your case it is vanity. If you +were half as miserable as you pretend, you'd have blown your brains out +long ago, or deemed yourself the veriest craven alive. I've no patience +with such attitudinizing." + +"You are partly right," he admitted, "but do any of us find the savor +of life so sweet as to make it worth while?" + +Something in his voice, a ring of what might be pity in his tone, +humiliated Helen. She suspected that he thought her outburst arose from +a too great fondness for himself, for grief at parting and at giving +him up to another. She struggled to regain her calmness; she felt the +impossibility of contradicting the belief which she was sure existed in +his mind; she was conscious that to say, "I do not love you," would +appear to him proof incontrovertible that the reverse was true. Her +throat contracted painfully and she cast down her eyes lest the tears +in them should be seen. + +"The Caffres," Fenton continued, after an instant's pause, "are said to +be so fond of sugar that they will eat a handful of sand rather than +lose a grain or two that has fallen to the ground; it seems to me life +is the sand and joy in the proportion of the sugar. I'm not willing to +take the sand, and I protest against it. There is no morality in it." + +"There is no morality in any thing but death," Helen returned drearily. + +"Death!" echoed Fenton. "Do you call that moral! Death that crushes the +emotions, that kills the passions, that pollutes the flesh; the monster +which debauches all that is sacred in the physical, that degrades to +the level of the lowest all that is high in the intellectual--is this +your idea of the moral? The coarsest rioting of sensual life is sacred +beside it. Death moral? _Mon Dieu_, Helen, how you do abuse +terms!" + +Fenton was continually treading upon the dangerous edge between pathos +and bathos, between impressiveness and absurdity. Had he not possessed +extremely sensitive perceptions which enabled him to judge swiftly and +exactly of the effect of his declamations, and the keenest sense of the +ludicrous that helped him to turn into ridicule whatever could not be +made to pass for earnest, much of his extravagant talk would have +excited amusement and, not impossibly, contempt, instead of producing +the half serious effect he desired. He could impart a vast air of +sincerity to his speech, moreover, and could even for the moment be +sincere. In the present case his earnest and real feeling saved this +outburst from the somewhat theatrical air which the words might easily +have had if spoken at all artificially. + +"The history of mankind," went on the artist, in a sort of two-fold +consciousness, deeply feeling on the one hand what he was saying, but +on the other endeavoring to direct the conversation to generalities in +which would be lost the dangerous personal remarks which threatened, +"the whole history of mankind is a protest against death as an insult, +an outrage. All religions are only mankind's defiance of death more or +less largely phrased." + +"No," Helen said. "Not our defiance; our confession of a craven fear. I +am afraid of death. I don't dare take my life." + +"We are talking," responded her companion, in his turn leaving the +table and approaching the window, "like a couple of unmitigated ghouls. +I acknowledge your right to put aside your life if it bores you; man +has at least that one inalienable right. But why should you? Art is +left still." + +"Art," she repeated with profound sadness; "yes, but a woman is never +content with abstractions. She demands something more definite. And, by +the way, Will came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes! What did he want?" + +"He said he only came to see how I was. I think he recognizes that now +he has come from Europe our secret is sure to leak out soon, and is +looking the ground over to see how it is best to behave. He was very +entertaining; I never enjoyed him more thoroughly." + +"He's a model husband," Fenton observed thoughtfully. "As well as you +like each other, I'll be hanged if I can see why you don't live like +other people." + +"It is precisely because we don't live like other people," was the +reply, "that we do like each other so well. We are the best of friends; +we were the worst possible husband and wife. I hated him officially, +and---There! Why must you bring all that up again? Let the dead past +bury its dead." + +"But the past won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a +persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly +disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll +caricature might be made on that line? Time as a decrepit old sexton, +you know." + +"So few people can joke on those subjects that it would appeal to a +very limited audience, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, that's true of every thing that is good for any thing." + +"Unfortunately the converse is not true, for every thing appealing to a +small audience is by no means good." + +"Not even marriage?" + +"Still harping on matrimony," said Helen, laughing. "What will you do +after the knot is really tied? You speak in the mournful tone of one +who reads _'Lasciate ogni speranza'_ upon his wedding horseshoe." + +"Oh, not quite," he laughed back, "for after marriage a man can always +amuse himself, you know, by looking at any woman he may meet and +fancying how much worse off he might be if he had married her instead +of his wife." + +"Well," Helen remarked, turning, "your conversation is amusing and +doubtless deeply instructive, but I must go to the studio. My +bas-relief will hardly complete itself, I suppose, and I've a splendid +offer for it, to decorate a house in Milton. It is to be paneled into +the side of an oak stairway at the back of the main hall. Isn't that +fine?" + + + + +X. + +O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT. + Hamlet; i.--5. + + +Anomalies are doubtless as truly the product of law as results whose +logic is evident, and the strange relations between Mrs. Greyson and +her husband were therefore to be considered the outcome of fixed causes +from which no other result was possible. + +Married when scarcely more than a girl, shy, undeveloped and ignorant +of the world, Helen came from a secluded life, which had been pretty +equally divided between the library of her dead father and the woods +surrounding the country village where she lived. She had never even +fancied that she loved Dr. Ashton; but she had married him as she would +have obeyed any other command of the stern aunt who had presided +severely over her orphaned childhood. He, half-a-dozen years her +senior, had been enamored of her wonderful beauty and modest +intellectuality; and, being accustomed always to gratify the impulse of +the moment, he had married her with a precipitancy as characteristic as +it was reckless. It was owing to a certain mutual scorn of +conventionalities that Helen and her husband at length decided to +separate. Without the aid of the law and without scandal, they settled +back into single liberty, the wife taking again her father's name. They +had spent their married life abroad, where Dr. Ashton had remained +until a short time previous to the opening of our story, and as neither +husband nor wife had been in their single life known in Boston, and as +Helen was chary of new acquaintances, their relations had thus far +remained undiscovered. Helen, at least, recognized how improbable it +was that this secrecy would long remain inviolate, but she went quietly +on her way, letting events take their own course. + +Arthur Fenton was an old friend of her husband whom Helen had met in +Europe, but had known intimately only during her Boston life. She had +found him sympathetic, responsive and entertaining, and as any lonely +woman clings to the companionship of an appreciative man, she had clung +to the friendship and comradeship of the artist. + +Going across the Common towards the studio on this sunny morning, when +the air was brisk and bracing, the naked trees clearly and delicately +defined against the sky, Helen's thoughts went back to her past; to her +shy, secluded girlhood, to the years of her married life, and to the +way in which she had been living since she and her husband parted. She +reflected with a smile, half pity, half contempt, of the proud, +reticent girl who had pored over books and drawings in the musty, +deserted library at home, almost wondering if she were the same being. +She looked from the Joy Street mall across the hollow which holds the +Frog Pond, the most charming view on the Common, yet not even the +golden sparkle of the water or the beautiful line of the slope beyond +could chase from her mind the picture of the high, dim old room, lined +to the ceiling with book-shelves, dingy and dusty from neglect. She +seemed to hear still the weird tapping of the beech-tree boughs against +the tall narrow windows, and still to smell odor of old leather; she +remembered vividly the dull dizziness that came from stooping too long +over some volume too heavy to hold, above which, half lying upon the +carpetless floor, she had bent with drooping golden curls. She +remembered, too, the remoteness of the real world from the ideal sphere +in which her fancy placed her; how unimportant and unsubstantial to her +had appeared the events of daily life as compared with the incidents of +the world the old books in the musty library opened to her. The life of +these magic tomes was the real, and that humdrum state through which +her visible pathway lay was the dream. To the imaginative girl, half +child, half poet, her marriage had prospectively seemed merely an +accident of the trivial outside existence which surrounded without +penetrating her true being; and the sharpness of the rude awakening +from this childish misconception still pierced the woman's proud soul. + +No woman recalls her childhood without regret, and despite the +philosophy she had cultivated, Helen felt a deep sadness as the old +days, somber and dull though they had been, rose before her. She +hurried her step a little as if to escape her past, when a pleasant +voice at her elbow said: + +"Good morning, Helen. Upon what wickedness are you bent now. You go too +fast to be on a good errand." + +"Good morning, Will," she answered, without turning, for the voice +brought the speaker before her mental vision as plainly as her eyes +could have done. "I was just thinking of you, and of the days when you +found me at home." + +"Yes," responded Dr. Ashton, "what were you thinking of them?" + +"Nothing very pleasant," she answered with a sigh. "What a gorgeous day +it is. Arthur has been breakfasting with me." + +"Arthur is going to be married," remarked her companion good humoredly. +"I've just been out to buy him a wedding present." + +"What is it?" + +"Oh, something he chose himself. It is not safe to tell you, though." + +"Haven't I proved my discretion?" Helen said lightly. "I thought that +by this time you'd be willing to trust me with your most deadly +secrets." + +"This is a deadly secret, indeed," he returned, taking from his pocket +a small morocco case. + +"Oh, jewelry," Helen said, with an accent of disappointment. "I should +never have suspected you of such commonplaceness, Will." + +"Not jewelry; a jewel," retorted Dr. Ashton, opening the case and +displaying a tiny vial. + +"Will!" Helen exclaimed, stopping suddenly and catching her husband by +the arm, "you won't give him that?" + +"Why not? I promised him long ago that I'd get it for him, and he +particularly asked for it as a wedding gift." + +"Oh, Will; don't do it! He'll use it sometime when he's blue; he'll----" + +"Nonsense," responded the physician, restoring the case to his pocket. +"I've diagnosed his case perfectly. He isn't very robust, he's +infernally sensitive, and he's no end morbid. He fancies he may want to +kill himself, and I dare say he will have leanings that way. Most of us +do. He has wanted to a good many times before now, and he is likely to +again, but he won't do it. He's too soft-hearted. He might get up steam +enough as far as courage goes, but he'd never forget other people and +their opinion. He couldn't bear to hurt others, and still less could he +bear the idea of their blaming him. He is precisely the man who cannot +take his own life." + +"But what puts it into his head just now? Why should he marry if he +dreads it so?" + +"It is all of a piece with his morbidness. He is really in love with +Miss Caldwell, I think, but he has brooded over the matter as he broods +over every thing, and seeing the uncertain nature of matrimony, he like +a wise man provides for contingencies. There may be something behind +that I don't know of, but I think not. He'll feel easier if he has +this, and I am honestly doing him a favor, if it isn't in the way he +thinks." + +"I do not know," persisted Helen, "but I do wish you wouldn't do it. +How would his bride feel if she knew?" + +"I don't know her," Dr. Ashton returned coolly, "so of course I can't +tell how sensible she is; but in any case I can trust Arthur's +discretion." + +"She's orthodox," said Helen, "or, no, I think she is not so bad as +that; but she would regard the idea of suicide as unspeakably wicked. +At least I think so; I never saw her but once. Oh, I do hate to have +Arthur marry her. It's dreadful!" + +"Of course; it's dreadful to think of any man's marrying, for that +matter," he returned with a smile, "but he is a man who was sure to do +it sooner or later." + +"He's a man of so much principle," Helen mused, half aloud. + +"Principle," sneered her companion laughingly, "principle is only +formulated policy." + +"I am dreadfully tired of epigrams," sighed Helen as they walked down +West street. "Whether Arthur learned the habit of you or you of him I +don't know; but the pair of you are enough to corrupt all Boston. I do +wish you'd give me that case. I'm sure I need it far more than Arthur +does. He's going to be married, his pictures are praised and are +beginning to sell, he has life before him and every thing to live for, +while I have nothing." + +"Life is before you, too," answered her husband gravely, putting his +hand upon her arm to prevent her flying under the wheels of a carriage +which in her absorption she had not noticed. "Look here, Helen; it +wouldn't be any better if Arthur wanted to marry you. You are too +melancholy alone without having him to push you deeper into the slough +of despond." + +"You are mistaken, Will," was the quiet response. "I am fond of Arthur, +very fond, indeed; but not in that way. I am a fool to grieve about his +marriage; I own that, though after all I've lived through I ought to be +too hardened to care. But you must acknowledge that it isn't very +pleasant for me to see him deliberately going away to marry a woman who +would consider me a Bohemian, and very likely anything but respectable, +because you and I choose to be comfortable apart instead of miserable +together. If I were not so utterly alone in the world, losing a friend +would not be so great a matter, perhaps; but he is all I have now, +Will." + +"It is hard, old lady; that's a fact. I wish I could straighten things +out for you, but I don't see how I can." + +"No," Helen said drearily, "nobody can." + + + + +XI. + +WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED. + Comedy of Errors; i.--I. + + +Upon entering the small studio where her bas-relief stood, Helen found +Herman there before her. He had removed the wet cloths from the clay +and was examining the work with close attention. + +"You need a model for this figure," he said, indicating the month of +May. "You must take that turn of the shoulder from nothing but life." + +Helen came and stood beside him, looking at the work. The instinct of +the artist for the moment superseded all other feelings in her mind, +and she forgot alike her own troubles and the ill-omened gift with +which her husband purposed remembering the nuptials of her friend. + +The figure of May of which Herman spoke was that of a beautiful young +girl casting backward a wistful look at the fallen flowers which she +had dropped but might not stay to gather up again. The splendid +movement of the youthful figure, thrown forward in her running, but +with one shoulder turned toward the spectator, so that the upper +portion of the beautiful bosom was seen, formed one of the finest +details of the composition. + +"Yes," the sculptor said again, "you must have a model for that, and I +have one coming this morning. To be honest, I came up here hoping you'd +need her. I believe she is a good girl, and I do not like the idea of +her being about among the studios." + +He went on to speak of the figure, adding suggestions of treatment, +feeling and posing; and as he talked he was conscious of needlessly +prolonging the conversation for the mere pleasure of being near this +woman, and of secretly cherishing some vague feeling that not only +would Ninitta be safe under Mrs. Greyson's guardianship, but that some +solution of the complexities in which he found himself involved would +result from bringing together the two women so closely connected with +his life. + +He went away into his own studio at length, but Helen had scarcely got +fairly to work before he reappeared with Ninitta. + +Ninitta was much the same in outward appearance as upon the previous +day, but between this morning's mental state and that of yesterday +there was a great gulf. The Italian's character was a strange if not +wholly unique mixture of simplicity and worldly wisdom. All her +experiences, her life as a model in various parts of the world, her +hardships and successes, while teaching her only too sharply the +follies and vices of mankind, had never for an instant shaken her faith +in Grant Herman. He was her god. It is even doubtful if any thing he +could have done would have destroyed her belief in his integrity and +nobility of soul. When he left her, she acquiesced, it is true, but +with a wild passion of anguish. She knew he misjudged, but she chose to +phrase it to herself that he was deceived; his rashness and +hot-headedness were to her only so many fresh evidences of his +greatness of character. She was not the first woman who has vaguely felt +that unreasoning jealousy and passion are admirable or even +essential attributes of virility, and who has worshiped a man as much +for his faults as for his virtues. + +To the dream of meeting Herman with the proofs that he had been +deceived, Ninitta had clung unyieldingly through the dreary years since +the death of Hoffmeir, who had been kind to her for the sake of his +shattered friendship with Herman, and for the sake, too, of his own +hopeless love for herself. It was from mingled shyness and pride that +Ninitta had waited for a summons from the sculptor after she had +reached Boston; but when she had at last gone to his studio it was with +keen emotion. She had not considered that both herself and her old-time +lover had changed in the seven years of separation. She had not +reflected that believing her false he could not but have endeavored to +forget her. She could not know that contact with the world, if it had +not made him ashamed of his youthful enthusiasm, had at least showed +him how the marriage he had contemplated would have appeared in the +eyes of worldly wisdom, and had so educated him that reason was less +helpless before passion than of old. + +But to-day Ninitta was a different woman, changed by the agony of a +night into which had been compressed the bitterness of years. She had +been too sharply wounded at being greeted by a hand-shake in place of +the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead +of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations +between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the +alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a +knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far +keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. +Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her sex stood her +in good stead. She was convinced that some other woman had won the +sculptor's love from her. When she came into Helen's studio this +morning she watched sharply for some token which should show her the +relations in which the two artists stood to each other; but she could +detect nothing significant. Mrs. Greyson was intent only upon her work, +and whatever the sculptor may have felt at the meeting of Helen and +Ninitta, he made no outward sign. + +The model showed a quickness of comprehension in taking the pose +required, and the shoulder she bared was of so exquisite mold that +Helen's keenest artistic powers were aroused. Ninitta understood the +art of posing as a painter knows the use of brush and colors; she had +for it an inborn capacity impossible except in the child of an art +land. Moved by the inspiration of that most beautiful bust, Mrs. +Greyson worked enthusiastically, scarcely noticing when her master left +the room, an indication of indifference which the model did not fail to +note. + + + + +XII. + +WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur +Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and +it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The +sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit +her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend +with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to +care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a +small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she +declined being hampered by a chaperon. + +"My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to +come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be +an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I +suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more." + +On the present occasion Arthur Fenton asked leave to light his cigar, +and although Herman felt this something of a profanation, it was not +long before he and Rangely added their wreaths to the smoke garlands +which hung upon the air, and had not the hostess become somewhat +accustomed to tobacco in foreign _ateliers,_ it is to be doubted +if she could have complacently endured the fumes which arose. + +All subjects of heaven and earth came drifting into the talk, and at +length something evoked from Rangely his opinion of Emerson. + +"Emerson was great," he said, "Emerson often recalled Goethe in +Goethe's cooler and more intellectual moods; but Emerson lacked the +loftiness of vice; he was eternally narrow." + +"'The loftiness of vice,'" echoed the hostess. "What does that mean? It +sounds vicious enough." + +"Emerson," Rangely returned, "knew only half of life. He never had any +conception of the passionate longing for vice _per se;_ the +thrill, the glow which comes to some men at the splendid caress of sin +in her most horrible shape. Do you see what I mean? He couldn't imagine +the ecstasy that may lie in mere foulness." + +"No," replied Helen, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. Though I am sure I +ought to be shocked. Do you mean that he should have been vicious?" + +"Certainly not; but it was his limitation not to be tempted; not to be +able to project himself into a personality which riots in wickedness +far more intensely than a saint follows righteousness." + +"If you mean that he could not have been wicked if he tried, that, I +own, was in a sense a limitation." + +"Yes; and a fatal one. No man can be wholly great who understands only +one half of human impulses." + +"But what do you mean by wickedness?" demanded Herman, a little +combatively. + +"Oh," laughed Rangely, "I'm not to be entrapped into giving +metaphysical and theological definitions. I mean what we are expected +to call wickedness, conventionally speaking. I've an old cad of a +parson in my new play and I am trying to decide if it will do to have +him advocate a grand scheme for reforming the world by reversing +definitions and calling those things men choose to do virtues, and +dubbing whatever man detests, vices." + +"That is rather more clever than orthodox," Helen laughed. "How is your +play getting on, Mr. Rangely?" + +"Oh, fairish, thank you. The trouble is that the drama went out of +fashion long ago. First they replaced it by dresses and scenery, but +now every thing has given way to souvenir programmes; so I've got to +write up to a souvenir or I sha'n't make any thing out of the play." + +"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations." + +"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three +successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to +proper art levels." + +Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and +regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet, +scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's +thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his +favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler +than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated +pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with +little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings. + +"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom +he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more +melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he +has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson +watches him." + +Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen +observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent. +She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more +intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully, +although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what +was passing in the mind of her silent friend. + +"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He +is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an +unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like +him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently +selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that +she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the +other side; I am sure I hope so." + +She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes +met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine +fibers to knit people together. + +The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had +expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition. + +"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is +bow-legged!" + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe +from you for the whole evening." + +"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has +probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall +have something wild directly." + +"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising, +"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air +with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades +smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on +principle." + +He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to +lead her to the instrument. + +"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her +guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas +lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like +to be looked at too keenly when I sing." + +The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft +chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs. +Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come, +and he never forgot the thrill of that experience. + +An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the +singer. + +Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she +sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The +words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_ + + +I strew these opiate flowers +On thy restless pillow,-- +They were plucked from Orient bowers, +By the Indian billow. +Be thy sleep +Calm and deep, +Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep. + +Away, unlovely dreams! +Away, false shapes of sleep! + +Be his, as Heaven seems, +Clear and bright and deep! +Soft as love and calm as death, +Sweet as summer night without a breath. + +Sleep! sleep! My song is laden +With the soul of slumber; +It was sung by a Samian maiden +Whose lover was of the number +Who now keep +That calm sleep +Whence none may wake; where none shall weep. + +I touch thy temples pale! +I breathe my soul on thee! +And could my prayers avail, +All my joy should be +Dead, and I would live to weep, +So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep! + + +It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The +strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful, +sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating, +passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was +a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct +appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each +as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a +confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him +honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It +was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which +made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before +hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his +being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been +moved with wonder and longing. + +Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of +the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho +singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved, +and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her +presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music +could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for +the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a +sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his +friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a +right to see. + + + + +XIII. + +THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART. + Macbeth; iv.--3. + + +A hush followed the conclusion of Mrs. Greyson's song. + +No one wished to speak what all felt, and when the silence was broken, +it was with talk of the poet rather than of the singer. To the singing +they came only by slow degrees, and over it, when at length their +admiration found speech, they passed lightly. + +One thing which seemed to be effected by the music was the awakening of +Fenton from his gloomy reverie. He began to talk in his most +extravagant and whimsical style, answering every question instantly, if +with no especial care concerning the relevancy of his replies. + +"What nonsense it is," he exclaimed, "to talk of any man's originating +any thing. Why, when even Adam couldn't be made without material, what +are we, his descendants, that we should hope to create? The authors of +this old wisdom that we revamp to-day copied somebody further back, and +those in turn put down what the masses felt; collected the foam which +gathered on the yeasty waves of their age. Every truth comes to the +people first if they could only recognize it when it comes. It is +evolved by the friction of the masses, just as a fire is set by the +rubbing together of tree-boughs in primeval forests, and the dusky +redman incontinently roasted in his uncontaminated innocence. The +longer I live the less faith I have that a man evolves any thing from +his inner consciousness. Fancies are only the lies of the mendacious +brain, which perceives one thing and declares to us another." + +"Go slow, Fenton," interrupted Herman, "you know our poor wits are apt +to be dazzled by too much brilliancy." + +"The age," Fenton rattled on, "blooms once into a great man as an aloe +into a crown of bloom." + +"Right in there," broke in Rangely, who longed for a share in the +conversation, "just consider how necessary it is that every art +producer shall be in sympathy with the human life about him. That he +should take the best wherever it is to be found. There's a miserable +sentiment about shutting one's self up in some dark corner, and +producing some tremendous thing. Don't you know how many New York and +Boston artists have gone to Europe and hermetically sealed themselves +up somewhere to ferment into greatness like a jug of cider turning into +vinegar in a farmer's cellar?" + +"That's what made Hunt such a big fellow," Herman interposed; "because +he took the good wherever it offered." + +"But that depends upon whether a man goes direct to Nature for +inspiration," declared Fenton, "or sets himself to get a living by +filching the good things his neighbors have won from her." + +"Hunt did go to nature; that is just where he was great." + +"I think," said Fred, laughingly, "that you will appreciate the mood in +which I once wrote a preface. I planned a great metaphysical and +philosophical work--I was a good deal younger than I am now--and the +preface was to be, 'As to the originality of these ideas, I have +nothing more to say than that I do not remember that they have ever +been printed with my name on the title-page.' Of course, after that +declaration, I felt at liberty to take any thing I wanted from any +where; but, unluckily, my book never got beyond the preface." + +"I'm glad you had the sense to stop there," declared Arthur. "I forgive +the preface, but I could never have forgiven the book." + +Helen rose from her seat at the piano and turned up the gas a little. +The effect for which the light had been lowered was secured, and it was +better, she recognized, to give to her singing a certain isolation, +which must be done before the conversation became so general that the +change from gloom to light would not be noticed. + +She wore that evening a gray silk with black lace, a slight turning +away showing the whiteness of her beautiful throat. Her jewels were +cats'-eyes. + +"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the +Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, +watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker. + +"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess +of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the +sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is +deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being +the true author of _'Sartor Resartus.'_" + +"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I +do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to +pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old +humbug! He was the sham _par excellence_ of the nineteenth +century, this century of shams." + +"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated +Herman, "even in shams." + +"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous +egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is +something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a +relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass +of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real +sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you +recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting +up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will +often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one? +that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the +letter?" + +"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly. +"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere." + +"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess +of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to +Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth +agreeably and effectively told. _Vive la faussete!_" + +"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own +light," Herman observed, a little grimly. + +He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter, +apparently, did not feel the thrust. + +"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine +Pagan." + +"You are wrong in your idea," was Fenton's swift reply. "A true Pagan +must have a belief in some god to take from his shoulders the burden of +personal responsibility, or he cannot be joyous as a Pagan should. +However, to-night I make myself believe that I believe something, so it +comes to much the same thing." + +Helen turned and looked at him, attracted by some subtle quality in his +voice. + +He was sitting sidewise in his chair, holding an ivory paper-knife in +his slender fingers. His cheeks burned, his eyes were bright, his lips +red. He had shaken off the depression which oppressed him earlier in +the evening. An air of joyous, quivering excitement pervaded him. He +threw up his head with a characteristic gesture, and looked about him +like one who has conquered in some desperate conflict. + +"Come," the hostess said, wondering in what inward struggle he had come +off victor; "you promised to assist me with the coffee. I make no boast +of my house or my hospitality, gentlemen," she added, with a charming +glance around, "but I warn you in advance that not to admire my coffee +is to lose my friendship forever." + +In answer to her ring, a servant brought in a small mortar and a pretty +little bowl of whole coffee, delicately browned, and scarcely cold from +its roasting. Arthur, who seemed acquainted with Mrs. Greyson's methods +of procedure, began to pound the berries, roasted to perfect crispness, +in the ebony mortar, reducing them to an almost impalpable powder, +which diffused upon the air the entrancing odor dear to the nostrils of +all artists. + +The servant meantime had provided tiny cups, a little copper ibrik and +an alcohol lamp over which simmered a vessel of boiling water. + +"Coffee should be prepared only over coals of perfumed wood," Helen +remarked as she measured into the ibrik the small spoonful of coffee +dust designed for a single cup. "But alcohol is the next best thing, it +burns with such a supernatural flame." + +She put into the ibrik a measure of boiling water, rested it an instant +over the flame to restore the heat lost in the cooler copper, and then +poured the beverage into the egg-shell cup destined for it. + +"To my master first," she said, presenting the steaming cup to Herman, +who received it much as one might a gift from the skies. "I learned my +coffee making," she continued, "from an old Arab at Cairo, who used to +say that it was one of the only two things in life worth doing, the +other being the duties of religion; and it therefore should be +perfectly done." + +"It is simply divine," the sculptor said. "I have never really tasted +coffee before. Only if it is made like this your Arab might have said +there was but one thing in life, for this becomes a religious duty." +One by one with equal care were prepared cups for the others, who were +neither slow nor perfunctory in their endorsement of the sculptor's +praise. + + + + +XIV. + +THIS IS NOT A BOON. + Othello; iii.--3. + + + "'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow;'" + +Hummed Grant Herman to himself, taking his lonely way down the dim and +dingy streets leading to the wharves where he had his abode: + + "'I strew these opiate flowers--' + +Oh, what a woman she is! She might be Brunhilde, or she might be Burd +Helen; + + 'I strew these--' + +I wonder what she had to say to Fenton that she made him stay. Confound +that fellow! I'm not more than half sure that I'm fond of him; though I +can't bring myself fairly and squarely to dislike him. But I wish he +didn't know Mrs. Greyson quite so well; he's going to be married, too. +I wonder how he came to know her, any how. It is strange she doesn't +wear black if she is a widow. I'd like to learn something more definite +about her, but Fenton's the only one who would be likely to know, and I +certainly will not ask him. I suppose he is there yet, lounging in some +sort of an outlandish shape." + +Arthur was indeed still in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an +attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of +himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been +suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual +difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching +Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying the room a little. + +"We have been too good friends," she said, "to say good-by in public. +The old days have been pleasant, and it is hard to give them up." + +"You have insisted upon it that they are gone forever," he returned, +"until I almost begin to believe you. But it is no matter. _Che sara +sara_." + +"Yes; _che sara sara_," she echoed. "But now are you willing to do +me a favor? I haven't asked many of you." + +"You certainly deserve that I should say yes without a quibble," +replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the +risk; so I will merely answer,--I would like to do you a favor if I +may." + +She came and sat down near him, a beautiful woman, flushed and tender. +It arose perhaps from the delicate sensitiveness of both that they had +always instinctively avoided those chance contacts which between lovers +become so significant, confining themselves to rare hand-shakes at +meeting and parting; and it may be that their very scrupulousness in +this matter proves how near they had been to more emotional relations +than those of simple friendship. Now when Helen laid her hand upon her +friend's arm it marked an earnestness which showed how much she felt +what she was about to say. + +"I want you to give me something that Will gave you the other day." + +Fenton's first feeling was one of annoyance, but this was quickly +replaced by a desire to fathom the motives which prompted her request. + +"How did you know of it?" he asked. + +"By divination," she answered, with a faint smile. "Will you give it to +me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Because I ask you." + +"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?" + +"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that +in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss +Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may +lead you to--to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy +with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a +right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman +with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of +deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours. +You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy." + +"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a +tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen, +it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that +vial. It is all like a scene in _The City of Dreadful Night_. I +cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness. +Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very +strong reasons to suppose that any body else will." + +"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a +wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow +the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is +true." + +"But she will not know." + +"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to +discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to +conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the +slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any +friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial." + +He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his +arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of +those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged +in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to +appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating +pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely. + +"But what would you do with it, Helen?" + +She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought +that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift +oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been +conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in +Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish +her purpose. + +"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want +you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my +word that I will never use it myself." + +He still made no movement to surrender the vial, but she held out her +hand. + +"Come," she pleaded. "I appeal to your best self. For the sake of your +mother, Arthur,--you have told me you could refuse her nothing she +asked, and she would surely ask this if she were alive and knew. Give +it to me." + +He slowly drew from some inner pocket the little morocco case and held +it in both hands looking at it. + +"It is a comfort to me," he said. "It means an end of every thing. It +means annihilation; it means getting rid of this nightmare of +existence. I can remember when I dreaded the idea of annihilation, but +I have come to feel that it is the only good to be desired. To be done +with every thing and to forget every thing! Don't you see, Helen; I +should never be satisfied with any thing short of omnipotence and +omniscience, and annihilation is the only refuge for a nature like +that. I want to be everything; to feel the joy of the conqueror and yet +not miss the keen, fine pang of the conquered--Lowell says it +somewhere; to be + + 'Both maiden and lover'-- + +I forget it--'bee and clover, you know; to be the 'red slayer' and 'the +slain' both. Do you wonder I want to keep this?" + +A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness came over Helen. Only half +consciously she spoke a thought aloud: + +"You are half mad from introspection." + +He turned upon her a quizzical smile. + +"I dare say," said he. "It isn't a comfortable process either. If a man +has lived twenty-five years, Helen, and has not so entangled his life +in a web of circumstances that no power will ever be able to +extricate it, he may consider his first quarter century of existence a +success." + +He spoke with a bitter good humor not uncommon with him, and he +believed himself sincere. He even mentally applauded himself for the +justness of the sentiment, and was not untouched with pity for a being +in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret +complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of +relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case. +Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and +she drew the dangerous gift out of his fingers. + +She sprang up and locked it away in a cabinet. + +"There!" she exclaimed, standing before him in a sudden revulsion of +feeling, her face flushed and her eyes shining. "Now I will tell you +what I think of you. I think you mean to be good to others, but--" + +"You always think better of me than I deserve," he interrupted; "at +least you treat me better." + +"That does not necessarily indicate any leniency of judgment," retorted +Helen. "I think you are self-centered, and morbid; and if marriage +doesn't reform you, I give you up, for nothing will. Suffering is only +an effect, the cause is sensibility; and you keep yourself abnormally +sensitive by having yourself always upon the vivisection table." + +She turned and walked away from him. Her emotion was getting beyond her +control. Her friendships were keen with the intensity of her passionate +nature; she had not passed through this struggle lightly, and perhaps +the victory unnerved her more than defeat would have done. On his part +he endeavored to turn every thing off as usual with a jest. + +"Have I told you Bently's latest?" he began. "He--" + +"It is of no use," she said, returning to him, tears overflowing her +eyes. "You cannot help my making a spectacle of myself; and you had +better go. Oh, Arthur, I hope so much for you; I do so hope for +happiness coming to you out of this marriage; but I shall be so +lonely." + +Her voice broke despite her effort. She came nearer, she hesitated an +instant; then she bent over and kissed his forehead. A hot tear +splashed upon his hand. + +"There," she said. "Good night, and good-by. When you come back you +will see what a fine steady old lady I have become." + +He got on to his feet, confused, troubled, pitying her profoundly and +commiserating himself upon the awkwardness of the situation. He tried +to frame some sentence which might bridge the distance that seemed +suddenly to have opened between them. Like a farewell, a renunciation +or a dedication, that kiss impressed upon him a certain remoteness new +and oppressive. + +"Bah!" he broke off. "I can say nothing, Helen. I have thus far served +in an already sufficiently unhappy world only to make people more +miserable still. I'm not worth a faintest regret. Good-night. If I can +ever serve you--Good-by!" + + + + +XV. + +'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL. + Othello; i--3. + + +Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss, +which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and +realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his +companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt +them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not +spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being +much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been +the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had +believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning +her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard +for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love. +She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of +a blighted passion. + +She sighed deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's +disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her +work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze +her energies and enervate her whole being. + +The gown which she had worn upon the previous evening lay over a chair, +giving out, as she lifted it, an odor of tobacco smoke. Some remark +made by Grant Herman about the fumes which had filled the little parlor +came into her mind, giving a new current to her thoughts. She +unconsciously fell to thinking of the sculptor, and, by a natural +connection of ideas, of Ninitta, who was still nominally posing for +her. + +Partly from interest in the girl herself and partly from the perception +that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had +retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the +model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive +ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, +not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so +strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so +sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her +hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning +kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although Ninitta was +perhaps scarcely to be reckoned among these extremists, she yet found +so much comfort in pouring out her sorrows to one who could both +sympathize and appreciate, that little by little the whole pathetic +tale was told. + +"I did not understand," Ninitta said once in her broken English, "when +he left Rome. It was as if somebody had taken my life away somehow. I +couldn't make it seem that I was really alive all the same, though I +knew it could not be his fault. He would not have done it if he had +known. You do not believe he would have left me if he had known the +truth?" + +"No," Helen answered. "He could not have left you if he had known. It +was because he was hurt so much, and that could only be because he +loved you so much." + +"He loved me so much," poor Ninitta repeated murmuringly, "he loved me +so much." + +And all that day she followed Helen with wistful eyes, as if she longed +to hear her say again those precious words. + +"I cannot tell you what it was like in Paris," she said at another +time. "In Rome they all knew me. They knew I was betrothed, and no one +ever troubled me. But in Paris it was different. Oh, I hate Paris! And +it was so cruel that he was not there. It was so dreadful that he +should be on the other side of that horrible sea!" + +The girl was so self-forgetful in these revelations, she spoke always +with such an unshaken faith in Herman and was so free from any thought +of blaming him, that Helen could not but be touched. She soothed poor +Ninitta as well as she was able, having power to promise nothing, +seeing no way out of the entanglement, yet at least showing to the +lonely Italian that her woman's heart bled for her sorrow if she might +not alleviate it. Sometimes she felt like going to the sculptor and +entreating him to take pity upon the girl who so adoringly loved him. +Once when the model had told her how just as she had saved by long, +painful economy, nearly money enough to pay the passage to America it +was stolen and she was forced to begin the slow process over again, +Helen impulsively left her studio and found herself on the very +threshold of Herman's door before she realized what she had been about +to do. By what authority was she to interfere in a matter like this? If +Ninitta loved the sculptor who had long ago ceased to return her +affection, could matters be helped by an unloving marriage? It was not +for her, moreover, to give unasked her advice to such a man as she knew +Grant Herman to be. If he consulted her, she reflected, she might +present the pathetic, touching story which Ninitta had told her, but +she had plainly no pretext for forcing her feelings upon her master +unsought. + +She turned and went slowly up the stairs toward her little room; but +suddenly she paused. She had all at once become conscious that she +desired eagerly to know the nature of the sculptor's feelings toward +his old love. Why, she asked herself, was she so interested in what +after all did not personally concern her. A quick emotion, almost too +vague to be called a thought, made her cheek flame. + +"No, no," she said half aloud. "It is only that I am touched by +Ninitta's sadness. It is nothing more." + +But her breath came more quickly, and it was with difficulty that upon +re-entering her studio she assumed a quiet mien, lest her model should +guess at her unfulfilled errand. + +On the morning following the meeting of the Pagans at her rooms, Helen +was alone in her studio. She had told Ninitta she should be late and +the latter was therefore tardy in arriving. Mrs. Greyson uncovered her +bas-relief, now rapidly nearing completion, and stood before it, +examining critically its merits and defects. A familiar step in the +passage, a tap at the door, and Grant Herman joined her. + +"You look as fresh as ever this morning," he said. "I feared that the +entertaining of such a company of Bohemians would have tired you out." + +"No, indeed," she returned. "I am of far too much endurance to be worn +out by any thing of that sort. I have a drop of Bohemian blood in my +veins myself, I think, and I like to meet men as men--when they are +simply good fellows together, I mean. A woman usually sees men in an +attitude of either deference or defense, and there is something +inspiriting to her in being occasionally received as a comrade." + +"There are few women who can be received so," returned Herman. "I +suppose it requires both an especial temperament and especial +experiences to render a woman capable of being a comrade to men." + +The talk drifted away to general and indifferent subjects, broken here +and there by allusions and criticisms relating to the Flight of the +Months, and not infrequently dropping into brief silences. One of these +Herman broke by saying abruptly: + +"You do not know how your song has haunted me all night. I have been +saying over and over to myself + + 'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow.' + +And, indeed, I longed for some such soporific myself before morning. +Your coffee or your song, or--yourself,"--he hesitated over the last +word--kept me very effectually awake." + +"It must have been the coffee; there was little potency in either of +the other causes." + +"There is much," he returned resolutely, advancing a step nearer. "Mrs. +Greyson, I have not wasted the night. I have thought out a great many +things; the first and chief being in regard to yourself." + +His tone, the piercing glow of his eyes, warned Helen what was coming. +She thought of Ninitta, and retreated a step. + +"It is true," the sculptor continued, as if answering the doubt implied +by her movement, "that I--" + +The door opened softly and Ninitta came in. + +His outstretched hand dropped; the words died upon his lips. He turned +from one woman to the other an appealing look of hopeless sadness and +left the studio in silence. + +It was characteristic of Helen's generosity that her first thought +should be of the pain which Ninitta must feel. One glance at the model +was sufficient to show that the Italian had comprehended enough of the +interrupted scene to be made wretched; but it did not then occur to +Mrs. Greyson that to Ninitta's jealous soul, unsuspicious of Herman, +the only explanation of a fondness between the sculptor and his pupil +lay in an effort on the part of the latter to win from the model her +rightful and long betrothed lover. + + + + +XVI. + +CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH. + As You Like It; i.--2. + + +Grant Herman sat in his studio in the gathering twilight thinking +gloomily. However little Mrs. Greyson suspected the tumult which would +be aroused in Ninitta's breast by the misadventure of the morning, the +sculptor was too well aware of the Italian's passionate nature not to +dread the consequences of the jealousy she was sure to feel. He knew, +moreover, that Ninitta's rage would vent itself not upon him but upon +Helen, and he wondered how best to avert the danger that threatened. + +He debated with himself, too, how much he owed to the girl who gave her +life up so unreservedly to him. His old love--"call it rather mere +boyish passion," he-thought scornfully--was long since dead beyond +hope; yet the devotion which it had awakened in Ninitta burned on as +steadily as ever. Had he now a right to repulse the love he had himself +called into being; to throw aside the fondness he had himself fostered +and which he had once prized above measure. + +"No," he thought, "a thousand times no. A man must be a villain who +would not marry a girl under such circumstances. I am hers; the fact +that I have changed is my misfortune, not her fault. If I have any +manliness about me, I won't let things go on in this way any longer. +I'll marry Ninitta. It is the smallest reparation I can make for the +long years of pain I have caused her. There is no other course for me. + +"But I do not love her, and a woman, they say, always instinctively +feels it when a man's heart is not hers. Nonsense! That is only a +cowardly excuse. At least Ninitta would never be troubled. She has not +known so much love that she can draw very sharp comparisons. No; she +will be satisfied; and I--well, if a man is such a devilish fool as I +have been, it remains for him to pay the penalty. Oh, if youth only +knew!" + +He sighed deeply and began to walk up and down the studio, in which the +dusk was gathering thickly. A last faint gleam from a window high in +the riverward wall fell upon one of the mutilated goddesses in the +gallery. Herman looked up, contemplating the phantom-like head +gloomily. Something in its pose, or perhaps more truly something in his +own mind, suggested a faint likeness to Helen, as if it were her ghost +looking down from some far height upon the conflict of his soul. + +"Ah!" he cried hotly to himself. "And she? How can I give up the hope +of winning her? What was a boy's foolish fancy to the passion of a +man--and for such a woman! She is half goddess. No, no; I cannot do it. +I cannot marry this Italian peasant, this model that has who knows what +history! I will not; I owe something to myself, to my art. What is the +simple happiness of Ninitta to my art? I should be a fool to ignore how +much more to the world my own well-being is worth than is hers; and +what could I not do with the inspiration of the other! Oh, my God!" + +The darkness grew. The phantom faded imperceptibly away. He was left +alone in the darkness to fight out his battle. He marched with great +strides, avoiding obstacles by a certain sixth sense born of constant +familiarity with the place. He fought manfully, persuading himself that +his scruples were as idle as air, remnants of the long since outgrown +superstitions of his childhood. He defiantly claimed the right to be +true to his powers, to his genius, rather than to an empirical standard +erected by narrow moralists. He should be thankful that he had escaped +entangling his life by that absurd marriage in Rome seven years ago, +and that he was now free to win a wife worthy Of himself and of his +art. + +Yet he cut through all the meshes of logic he had himself been weaving, +by striking his strong hands together there in the dark, and crying +aloud, his voice startling him in the stillness: + +"My God! What a poltroon I have become! Shall I cast on others the +burden of my own mistakes?" + +And seizing hat and cloak he left the studio, taking his way towards +the narrow street where Ninitta lodged, hastening to ask her to marry +him before his resolution faltered. + + + + +XVII. + +THIS "WOULD" CHANGES. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +Herman found Ninitta alone in the attic which served her for a home in +this bleak northern city, so far and so different from her own sunny +Capri. + +Bare and half furnished as was the room, the girl had contrived to +impart to it a certain air which removed it from the common-place. A +bit of flimsy drapery, begged from some studio, hung over one of the +windows; a rude print of the Madonna was pinned to the wall, and under +it, on the wooden table, was a bunch of withered flowers. They were +roses which Helen had given Ninitta, and the Italian, returning home +that day, had in her jealous rage thrown them to the floor and trampled +upon them. Then remembering that they had been offered to the Madonna, +she had been seized with a superstitious fear, and carefully restoring +the battered flowers, had eagerly vowed a fresh bunch to the Holy +Mother if she might be forgiven this sacrilege. + +But the most beautiful article in the room was a cast of a woman's +shoulder. It had been modeled by Herman in the earliest days of his +acquaintance with Ninitta, when she had been still only his model and +not his betrothed. He was touched as he looked at it now. Yellow with +time and soiled by its various journeyings, it still preserved unmarred +its lovely shape, exquisite curve melting into exquisite curve as +softly and sweetly as in those glowing days when he had molded it under +the sky of Italy. + +He looked from the cast to Ninitta. He had only seen her at the studio, +and he experienced a faint feeling of surprise at detecting a subtle +difference in her here at home. It was nothing so tangible that he +could have told by what means he received the impression, yet it was +sufficiently definite to make him lose something of the freedom with +which he had always addressed her. She was no longer simply the model, +she was an Italian woman in her own home. + +The years during which they had been separated had formed and +strengthened Ninitta's character. If Herman had not before noted the +alteration, it was due in part to his pre-occupation and in part to the +force of old habit which made her manner toward him much the same as +formerly. To-night he began to appreciate the change in her, and he +felt the awkwardness which always results from the discovery that we +must adapt ourselves to a modified condition in a friend. + +On her side Ninitta was naturally surprised at seeing the sculptor. She +had come to regard as hopeless all speculations upon his intentions, +and she had waited patiently until he should choose to show her favor, +tacitly acknowledging his right to do whatever should be his good +pleasure. Had he come at any time and said, "Ninitta, I am here to +marry you," she would gladly but quietly have made ready to follow +where he chose to lead, even to the world's end. Equally, had he said, +"Ninitta, I have come to say good-by; you will never see me again," she +would have acquiesced without a murmur, and then, perhaps, have taken +her own life. As long as it was his simple wish, uninfluenced by the +will of another, she would never have questioned. + +Now, however, all passive acquiescence was at an end. Since the scene +in Helen's studio, Ninitta had an object upon which to expend all her +energies, and she even almost forgot to love Herman in the intensity of +her sudden jealous hatred of Mrs. Greyson. Yesterday Grant Herman would +have found a woman not unlike the Ninitta of old times, tender, loving, +pathetically submissive; today he was confronted by a fury, only +restrained by the respect for his presence born of long habit. + +"Good evening!" he said gently, as he entered, his mood softened by the +struggle through which he had passed in his studio. + +"Good evening!" she answered defiantly, in Italian. "So you are not +with her!" + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +He had been wholly unprepared for this outburst, and for the instant +was too surprised to at all understand it. + +A sudden rage seemed to seize Ninitta, which swept away all barriers of +restraint. + +"_Si_, _si_, _si_," she cried, "I am not blind! What if +you are my betrothed, when this woman comes to entrap you, to bewitch +you with an evil eye, to steal your soul! Yes, yes; you are not with +her to-night as you were last night. Did I not see you myself come out +of her house?" + +"Stop!" he said in his most commanding tone, but without anger. + +The calmness and decision of the manner arrested her. She sank back +into a chair, regarding him with defiant eyes. + +"So you have followed me," continued Herman, speaking with painful +slowness, so that every word seemed to poor Ninitta to fall upon her +like a curse; "so you have played the spy upon me. Ah!" + +As he looked at her she began to cower. She shrank back in her seat, +putting up her hands to shield her face from his gaze. + +"Yet I meant to marry you," he said, half to himself, although still +addressing her. "I came to-night to say, 'Come, Ninitta, let us take up +the broken romance that a cruel mistake interrupted there in Rome.' I +had long ago outgrown my old fancy, but I meant to be true to my +promise to you. I meant to give up even my ambition for your sake; to +make your life happy and secure. And this is your trust in me! If you +really loved me, to track me like a thief would have been impossible to +you. And where have you learned this trick of playing the spy?" he went +on with growing wrath, becoming more and more cruel with every word. +"It is a relic of your Paris life, I fancy. It is hardly a resource to +which a good girl would be driven. I at least believed you when you +told me you had been true to me." + +He spoke rapidly, aggressively. The fact that he was outraging his own +instincts in beating with bitter words the girl who bowed before him +with drooping head and disheveled hair made him but the more harsh. To +fall from the height of self-sacrifice into a pool of vulgar intrigue! +Bah! His disgust at himself for ever having known this woman seemed too +great to be borne. + +Yet under all his passionate protest and repulsion he was conscious +that he doubted what he was himself saying with so much vehemence; that +he secretly believed Ninitta to be true and pure, and that to her +Italian blood, to her peasant nurture, was due the espionage in which +she had been self-betrayed. The sting of conscience, too, in the +knowledge that the model's jealousy of Helen was well founded, the +humiliation of finding his feelings and motives discovered, increased +his irritation. He felt a base desire to stab and humiliate Ninitta, +but for whom he might be free to win the one woman he had ever loved; +and the more his denunciations recoiled to hurt himself, the more +eagerly he poured them out, as in some moods of mental anguish one +finds relief in the pain of self-inflicted physical hurts. + +"Yes," he said, more and more completely abandoning control of himself; +"yes, this tells sufficiently what you have learned in Paris." + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and groveling +there. "No, no! For the love of the Virgin, signor, not that! I have +been good. Oh, for the love of God, signor! For the love of God!" + +She was shaken by the storm of sobs in which her words ended. She got +hold of his feet and refused to rise when he attempted to lift her. Her +long hair, escaped from its stilletto, fell about her face. Even in +this agitated moment the sculptor in Grant Herman noted with a sharp, +aesthetic pleasure the beautiful curves of her neck and shoulders. + +"Pity," she went on between her agonized sobs. "Oh, forgive me! I will +do any thing you wish. I will go away and leave you." + +He stooped and raised her by main force, yet tenderly. + +"There, there, Ninitta," he said, "I was wrong. I do believe you are a +good girl; but you should not have played the spy." + +He soothed her as well as he was able, her violence spending itself in +passionate tears. She drew herself away from him, and sat down again in +the chair she had been occupying. She put up her hands to her head, +twisting the loose tresses into a great coil. The sleeve of her dress, +unfastened in her agitation, fell back from her rounded arm. The superb +lines of her figure were displayed by her attitude. Her face, flushed +with weeping and lighted by the still tear-wet eyes, if not beautiful, +was appealing and pitiful. Some fiber touched of old vibrated anew in +his being. He made a step forward. + +"Ninitta," he said, "I came to-night to ask you to marry me at once; to +fulfill the promise I made you so long ago." + +The words and the tone both were tender, but he had said those same +words in anger just before. + +"But you do not love me," she responded, her arms dropping pathetically +into her lap. "You have said it." + +"But I was angry," answered Herman, for the moment almost believing +that his old love was re-awakened. "I did not mean you to believe it." + +"If you do love me," she said, a new look coming into her eyes, "you +will promise me never to see her again." + +He started back as if from a blow. His frail dream of passion was +shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt +that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged +into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush and her eye kindled. + +"Promise me," she repeated. "It is little for love to ask. It is my +right." + +With instinctive feminine guile she leaned towards him in an attitude +so beautiful, so appealing that even now he was moved. But with this +emotion came, too, a subtle if now fainter sense of degradation that he +was susceptible to this dangerous fascination, with a painful +consciousness of how wide a moral gulf had opened between them by the +anger and vulgar jealousy which Ninitta displayed. It is not +impossible, too, that his instinctive clinging to Helen was a stronger +power than he knew; while still through all his mingled emotions ran +the resolve he had made to give himself up to his old betrothed. + +"No," he said; yet as he moved slowly towards the door he had the air +of a man who still deliberates. + +She threw herself back in her seat with a touching gesture of despair, +but also with a gleam of malice in her eyes, which he, turning with his +hand upon the latch, caught and understood. + +"No," he repeated with final decision. "No, no!" + + + + +XVIII. + +BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE. + Love's Labor's Lost; ii.--I. + + +Fenton had returned to Boston with his bride, but as yet Helen had not +seen him. One morning late in March, however, he came to call. + +"I could not come before," he said after the first greeting, "'I have +married a wife,' and the amount of arrangement and adjustment implied +in that statement is simply astounding." + +"I am glad to see you at last," she returned. "And your wife, is she +well?" + +"My wife," replied he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar +term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful +reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith +in a different way from the crowd." + +Helen crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair by the +window. + +"He ought to understand," was her thought. "Why cannot he see that it +is impossible for his wife and me to harmonize. We have no common +ground." + +"I shall be glad to," she said aloud, inwardly shrinking at the need of +speaking disingenuously to one with whom she had so long been upon +terms of frankness. "I will come very soon; to-day or to-morrow. +To-day, though, I must go and see my bas-relief. It is all ready to be +cut for the furnace; I only want to take a last look at it, to be sure +that every thing is right. If it will not bore you," she added, a +little hesitatingly, "you might come too; it is your last chance to +find fault to any advantage, for any changes must be made at once." + +"I'd like to go," answered her friend, looking at his watch, "if I can +get back to luncheon. Yes, there's plenty of time." + +"Benedick, the married man," laughed Helen. "That I should ever live to +see this air of domesticity!" + +They crossed the Common, chatting idly, and both conscious that the +frankness of their old intercourse was somehow lacking; that it was +necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the +former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred +during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of +amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations +which no longer had real existence. + +"Oh, Arthur," Helen laughed, suddenly, "let's not go on in this way! +Let us quarrel, or something. Say a wicked epigram; do any thing, +only don't be so eminently amiable!" + +"My head is as empty of ideas," he returned laughing, in his turn, "as +is a modern title-page of punctuation points. Besides, Edith has +forbidden wicked epigrams." + +"Does she therefore suppose she can suppress them?" + +"Oh, I don't know," responded Fenton, good-humoredly. "I am not in as +epigrammatic a frame of mind as I was." + +"'Tis a good sign." + +"Yes; a sign I am growing inane and respectable." + +"I can imagine you one about as easily as the other." + +"That is bitter-sweet; a compliment and a flout." + +"If I had said that," Helen observed, smiling, "you would have +retorted, with a look of gloomy solemnity, that most things in life are +bitter-sweet; unless, indeed, you felt called upon to phrase it that it +had the advantage of most earthly matters by not being wholly bitter." + +"Was I ever guilty of such commonplace attempts at epigrams as that?" +returned Arthur. "If so it is certainly a good thing that I have given +up repartee for matrimony." + +"Oh, that is brilliant beside many of your attempts, I assure you. And +as for your giving them up--I reserve my decision." + +"You shall see, skeptic," he said lightly. "I expect to change the face +of the whole world if necessary." + +"It is a common error of ardent temperaments," she returned pleasantly, +but with evident sincerity, "to assume that a state of feeling can +change the world." + +"But I must, I will," he began eagerly. Then the light died out of his +face and he ended with a shrug. + +Helen put up her hand with an impulsive gesture, as if about to speak. + +Then letting her arms fall by her side, she turned to unlock the studio +door, which by this time they had reached. + +The bas-relief was still shrouded in its damp envelopes, which Helen +carefully removed, keeping Fenton away, that he might first see the +work as a whole, and not lose its legitimate effect by catching +fragmentary glimpses as it was uncovered. When at last it was fully +disclosed, she called him to her as she stood before it. + +"By Jove! That's stunning!" he exclaimed, after an instant's pause, +which gave him time to see it fairly. "Helen, you have outdone +yourself! That figure is simply superb. I hadn't an idea you would come +out so well. I'm wonderfully proud of you." + +"You are more amiable than ever," she responded; but her flushed cheek +showed that she was touched by his earnest praise. "For that figure I +have to thank Ninitta's posing. She is an inspiration." + +"But Ninitta did not inspire that splendid head," observed Arthur, +pointing with his cane at the December, "and you evidently did that +_con amore_. By Jove! It's Grant Herman, as I live!" + +As he spoke he turned and saw Ninitta on the threshold. + +"Shall you want me to-day?" the latter asked of Helen. + +"What made that girl look so savage?" Fenton questioned as the door +closed behind the model. + +"She perhaps chooses to be jealous of me," Helen replied composedly. + +"_Elle a peutetre raison_." + +"Perhaps." + +"You say that too calmly by half," was his gay response. "Yet as every +work a woman does has a man for its end--I learned that from the +classics; Penelope, you know, and even washwoman Nausicaae--I suppose it +is fair to assume this had. Only who is the man?" + +Helen flushed slightly. She recalled the ambition with which she had +begun this work, to make the man beside her praise its completion; and +she was conscious that before she finished it was the praise of Herman +for which she strove. + +"It is filthy lucre that inspires me," she replied steadily. "I need no +other incentive." + +They walked about the studio, talking of the bas-relief as seen from +different points; of how it was to be cut for firing; and on the safe +ground of art they forgot all personal constraints, until the striking +of a clock aroused Fenton to a sense of the flight of time. + +"I must go," he said. "I am no end glad I came. The truth is I am not +very well acquainted with this married man, and it is comfortable to +slip back occasionally into a familiar bachelor mood. However," he +continued with his brightest smile, "I like the Benedick far better +than I should ever have dreamed possible; and his wife is charming. And +I want to say, too," he added, "that I have a thousand times thanked +you for taking that vial before I went to be married. I'm in a spasm of +virtuousness just now, and it is pleasant to remember that I did not +have it that day." + +They went down stairs and out into the soft, spring-like day, +sauntering homeward in a happy and accordant mood. Arthur urged Helen's +going home to lunch with himself and Edith, but to Helen the morning +was far too precious to be ended in a possibly inharmonious meeting +with Mrs. Fenton. + +And that afternoon Herman sent for Mrs. Greyson in all haste. Ninitta +had vented her jealous rage upon the bas-relief, destroying the head of +December which she heard Fenton say must have been done _con +amore_, and the beautiful May for which she herself had posed. + + + + +XIX. + +NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS. + Romeo and Juliet; ii.--4. + + +Mrs. Fenton's wedding reception was largely attended. However strongly +the artist might savor of Bohemianism, his wife was connected with +certain prominent Philistines, and he had exhibited a most remarkable +readiness to have them present in force. + +"Into the camp of Philistia itself," muttered Rangely to Bently, as +they elbowed their way through the crowd. "By the great horn spoon, if +there isn't Peter Calvin! Arthur calls him the Great Boston Art Greek. +That ever I should live to see the humbug under Fenton's roof-tree!" + +"Pshaw!" returned Bently with an oath. "What a set of rubbishy old fobs +and dowagers there is here anyway. Is this the kind of people Fenton +means to know?" + +"Means to know," echoed Rangely. "He's got to go down on his marrow +bones to get them to consent to know him. They patronize art, and that +means that they snub artists." + +"Humph!" exclaimed Bently. "Is he sycophant enough to do that?" + +"That's as you look at it. His wife probably decides the matter for +him. She very naturally likes to know what she would call 'nice +people.' How those women chatter! I wonder what they find to talk +about." + +"Not necessarily any thing. They always talk all the same whether +they've any thing to say or not." + +"How much of life is wasted in enduring people for whom one does not +care," philosophized Rangely, looking over the throng which filled to +overflowing the Fentons' somewhat limited rooms. "Ah! There is Dr. +Ashton. How do you do, Doctor?" + +"As well as could be expected," the Doctor answered, "in this +antiquated assembly." + +"Oh, Boston is only an antiquarian society," laughed Rangely, "and +these old tabbies are all honorary members. By Jove, though, there are +some awfully pretty girls here." + +"I've observed that Boston girls are apt to be pretty when they give +their minds to it," remarked Bently. "Not when they wander round with +Homer under one arm and Virgil under the other and dyspepsia in the +stomach, but when they are deliberately frivolous." + +The throng separated them at this moment, and Dr. Ashton went in search +of host and hostess. Arthur caught sight of his tall figure, and made a +sign at once of recognition and summons. Struggling between a young +Episcopal clergyman and a corpulent old lady, Dr. Ashton made his way +with difficulty to the spot where his friend was standing. + +"You are the most married man I know, Arthur," was his greeting. +"Brigham Young wasn't a circumstance. I have been half an hour crossing +the room." + +"Dr. Ashton, Edith; my wife, Will," was the only reply Fenton made, +unless one could interpret the quizzical glance he bestowed upon his +friend. + +"I feel already acquainted with you," was Mrs. Fenton's remark, "I have +heard of you so often. My husband has spoken to me so much of his +friends that it is hard for me to realize that I do not know them +myself." + +"You have been very little in Boston, I believe," Dr. Ashton said, +looking at her in a sudden surprise at remembering that he had seen her +face before. + +"Very little," replied she, "I have been abroad a great part of my life +and--" + +New claims upon her attention ended the conversation with that charming +abruptness characteristic of such an occasion, and the Doctor was left +to elbow his way out of the crush, with the sense of having done all +that would be required of him. He found a corner where he could watch +the hostess and fell to wondering whether Mrs. Fenton in her turn +remembered their previous meeting. + +Edith Fenton was a slender, nun-like woman, too pale, with a smile of +wonderful attractiveness. "A woman to wear lilies," was the way Grant +Herman put it afterward; a remark which conveyed well the purity of her +face. Her ease of manner showed familiarity with the conventionalities +of life, yet in some vague way she seemed removed from the people by +whom she was to-day surrounded. + +"She has been brought up in the old narrow ways," Dr. Ashton reflected, +"but there are great possibilities about her. She'll either be the +making of Fenton or send him to the dogs. She will scarcely find much +room in her house for many of his former friends, I fancy." + +He stood watching the people and amusing himself with cynical +speculations until he saw Grant Herman's great figure among the guests. +He knew him but slightly and looked at him with an indifference which a +couple of hours later he regretted. Herman cared little for the +formalities of the occasion, and very likely might have gone away +without even being presented to the hostess had not Fred Rangely taken +him in charge and brought him safely through that ceremony. Now the +sculptor was looking for Mrs. Greyson, of whom he soon caught sight, +when he began making his way towards her. She however perceived him, +and with the feeling that she could not bear to meet him in public just +at this time, she evaded him by slipping into the window where her +husband was ensconced. + +"Take me out of this, please," she said, "I am tired." + +He gave her his arm without speaking, and together they made their way +from the room. + +"I want to talk to you," he remarked easily. "Mayn't I walk home with +you?" + +When she was ready they went together out into the starlit streets. +Neither spoke at first, each carrying on a train of thought to which +the other could have no adequate clew. + +"Who is Arthur's wife?" Dr. Ashton asked at length. "I know she was a +Miss Caldwell, that she came from Providence, and that she has been an +orphan so short a time that they had a perfectly quiet wedding; but +that is the extent of my knowledge. Is she an artist?" + +"An amateur," answered Helen. "She studied in Paris. He met her there. +She is a relative, I forget just how far or near, of Peter Calvin. She +seems to me an icicle. Think of Arthur's marrying a _religieuse_!" + +"What is his game, I wonder," said her companion thoughtfully. "Do you +know when she was in Paris? Was it when we were there." + +"Let me see," Helen responded, with a mental calculation. "Yes; she +must have been there the last year we were. Why? Did you ever meet +her?" + +"Perhaps," was the careless reply. + +They reached Helen's door as he spoke. + +"Come in," she said. "Fortunately I can make you a salad. It is a long +time since we had a _petit souper_ together. I have, too, +something to say to you." + +He followed her to the pretty parlor, and sat idly chatting while she +made her preparations for the supper. + + + + +XX. + +THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED. + Merchant of Venice; iii.--2. + + +It was a dainty little table to which Helen invited her husband when +every thing was ready. The china was of odd bits picked up here and +there abroad, and it was now disposed with an artist's eye for color +and grouping. A tall bottle of Rhine wine had come from some mysterious +nook, and beside it were a pair of fine old German glasses, frail as +bubbles. + +"I have always to offer my guests Rhine wine," Helen said, "for I've no +glasses for any thing else. Arthur is ungracious enough to object. He +does not like white wine as you do." + +"I do like it," her guest answered, drawing the cork, "and so does +Arthur, only he does not know it. He has somewhere stumbled upon the +whim of pretending not to, and he can deceive himself more completely +than any other man I ever saw. Rhine wine is the most poetic of +beverages. It should go down like oil and only leave a fragrance like a +poet's dream behind it." + +"That is quite a rhapsody for you, Will; only your cool tone gives it a +certain cynical flavor." + +"I mean all I say, I assure you. Champagne is vulgar. It is the drink +of self-made snobs and cads who wish to pass for men of the world; but +Rhine wine is the drink for poets and artists." + +"I am delighted to hear you defend it; it is very good of you, when I +happen to know you are not fond of it. It is a graceful return for my +inhospitality in not giving you your favorite Burgundy, but I haven't a +drop." + +"Oh, don't mind the wine! I came to see you," Dr. Ashton said, with his +delightful smile. "How droll it was to see Arthur to-day. Do you think +he has really persuaded himself he is in love with his wife?" + +"Arthur has great adaptability," Helen returned. "I think he believes +he is in love. I'm sure I hope you'll not feel it your duty to tell him +he isn't." + +"I'm not Mephistopheles," answered Dr. Ashton, smiling, and watching +appreciatively as she made the salad. + +Mrs. Greyson had dressed carefully for the reception from which she had +just come, and her cream-colored cashmere, with soft old thread lace, +and a bunch of amber-hued roses at the throat, became her as only a +dress chosen by an artist could. It fell away from her exquisite arms, +and from among the lace rose her beautiful neck, the stuff of her gown +setting off the lovely texture of her skin to perfection. + +"I must not ruin my best attire," she said lightly, gathering it up. +"Now Ninitta has spoiled my bas-relief, it may be long before I get +more. I owe you a good deal, Will, for letting me study modeling in +Paris." + +"It was pure selfishness," he returned good-humoredly. "I wanted to +keep you busy so that I might go my own way. But what about your +bas-relief? Who spoiled it? Who is Ninitta, and what has she against +you?" + +"That is what I wanted to tell you." + +She did not speak again for a moment, seemingly intent upon the exact +measurement of the ingredients of her salad. In reality she was +considering how best to present what she had to say. She mentally ran +over the points she wished to make, becoming thereby conscious that she +had herself come to no definite conclusions upon the topic she was +about to discuss. She looked furtively at her husband, noting his +attitude, his expression, and whatever her past experience enabled her +to construe into indications of his mood. As well and as long as she +had known this man, she was still ignorant of the key to his nature-- +that feeling or motive which, touched in an ultimate appeal, would +always insure a response. Conscience is the fruit of the tree of +experience, and, taken in this sense, every man must be possessed of a +conscience, which by its inner voice re-enforces any pleading which +coincides with its dictates. What was the nature of her husband's +inward monitor Helen had never been able to discover and at this moment +she realized keenly her ignorance. + +"Will," she said earnestly, laying down her salad-fork and spoon, "I +think it is wrong for us to live as we do." + +He shrugged his shoulders, looking at her curiously. + +"I cannot flatter myself that you care to return to the old +uncomfortableness." + +She flushed warmly, with a keen pang of mingled pain and indignation. + +"No," she replied. "No; never that. It is not for ourselves, but for +others." + +"Others! Fenton?" + +She flushed more deeply still. + +"I have told you already that you are mistaken about my regard for +Arthur. It was not he I meant." + +She served her guest, and sat playing nervously with her fork as he ate +and praised the salad. + +"Mr. Herman sent for me the other afternoon," she began again, forcing +herself to speak calmly. "My model Ninitta is very fond of him, and +chose to be jealous of his praise of my work. It might have all gone +over without an outburst, I suppose, if she had not had her attention +called to the fact that I had modeled his head for December. Why she +had never happened to notice it I don't know; she was in the studio +constantly." + +"Not when he was there?" queried Dr. Ashton, holding up his graceful, +antique wine-glass and admiring it. + +"No, not when he was there," repeated his wife. "She had pounded off +the head when he sent for me with a mallet she had picked up in his +studio. I never saw him in such a rage. She was gone when I got there. +She didn't make any attempt to conceal it. She came stalking +melodramatically into his studio with the mallet and laid it down. +'There,' said she, 'now kill me. I have broken her work.' It was like a +fashion magazine story. He thought at first she had gone mad." + +"So she had. Women are always insane when they are jealous. I wish I +had Arthur's knack at epigram, and I'd make that sound original." + +"He says he was very harsh," Helen continued, "though I fancy he could +not be quite that in any circumstances. It was very hard," she added +with a sigh. "It was like looking at a dead child to see my best work +ruined. It was really a part of myself." + +"But can't it be repaired? It was in the clay, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, but I fear for my exhausted enthusiasm. I can never do it as it +was before. My poor, unlucky December." + +She toyed with her glass absently, apparently for the moment forgetting +her companion, who continued his supper with no less relish than +before. He watched her keenly, however, fully aware that there was more +to be told. He was a man too accustomed to follow any desire or indulge +any whim not to notice appreciatively, as he had noticed many times +before, how beautiful were the curves of his wife's arms and throat, +and with what grace her head was poised. He had once defined a liberal +man as one who could appreciate his own wife, and he would have been +far more insensible than he was, if, with this beautiful woman before +him he had not been, judged by his own standard, extremely liberal. + +"And this has what to do with the question of our relations being +known?" he asked. + +She started from her reverie, the red again showing faintly in her +cheek. + +"It is hardly fair," she answered in a tone softer and lower than that +in which she had been speaking, "to tell you all that Mr. Herman said. +He wishes to marry me." + +"And you wish you were free to have it so?" + +There was once more a pause. Helen busied herself in an elaborate +arrangement of the torn lettuce leaves upon her plate, seemingly +concentrating all her thoughts upon forming them into an intricate +figure. + +"Will," she said, suddenly, lifting her eyes and leaning towards him, +"I do not know how to make you understand. I haven't succeeded so well +in my attempts thus far in life as to be very sanguine of doing it now. +You do not know how ashamed and contemptible I felt for being party to +the deception that made it possible for him to speak so to me. He was +so honest, so earnest; he was so unconscious of the barriers between +us. I felt that I had done him such an irreparable wrong by concealing +the truth. He had a right to know that I am a married woman." + +"Did you tell him?" + +"No; but I must. I want to be free from the promise we made to each +other." + +"It all comes," returned her husband without any show of irritation, +"from my telling Fenton." + +"I cannot see what that has to do with it. I like the absence from +questioning, the avoidance of gossip, as much as you can; but it makes +me feel as if I were a living lie to have Mr. Herman bringing his +honest love to me to be met only by deception. It is cruel and it is +wrong." + +"That depends entirely upon how you define wrong," retorted Dr. Ashton +coolly. "I do not see why it is wrong for me to decline to sacrifice my +convenience to Mr. Herman's sentiment. But without going into the +question of metaphysics, let us look at the matter reasonably. Do you +love Mr. Herman?" + +Notwithstanding the studied nonchalance of his tone, a glance into his +eyes might have shown Helen how much importance he attached to her +answer. A woman is peculiarly dangerous when she is telling one man +that another loves her. The masculine greed of possession is aroused by +the mere thought of a possible rival, and Dr. Ashton was conscious at +this moment of a kindling desire himself to win Helen's love, which he +knew perfectly well had never been his. + +"That is not at all relevant," was her reply, her eyes downcast. "The +question of honesty is enough now. At least I respect Mr. Herman, and I +must treat him squarely, as you would say. You have always told me to +be 'a square fellow,' you know," she added, raising her glance with a +faint smile. + +"But if you tell him," said her husband, with a subtle tinge of +impatience in his tone, "others must know. You can't go on letting one +after another into the secret without its soon becoming public +property." + +"Why not then?" she responded. "I wonder we have been able to keep it +so long. It is sure to be known now you have come home. I do not mean +to proclaim it upon the housetops; but to let it work out if it will. +What harm can it do?" + +"It will harm me. My life is not so secluded as yours is, Helen, It +will make things confoundedly awkward. I shall have to go about giving +endless explanations. Besides, here is Arthur's wife. I particularly +don't want her to know." + +"Why not? It is precisely that I was coming to. She seems to feel far +more kindly to me than I should have supposed possible. I can't lie to +her, Will. She has already asked me questions about my past life hard +to answer. I want to tell her, so that we may have an honest basis for +our friendship. I don't want to lose my hold on her." + +"Nor on Arthur," acquiesced he gravely. "It is for that reason that I +say you had better not tell her. I usually know what I am saying, do I +not? I tell you it is for your own sake that I warn you to be quiet. +Arthur isn't going to be held in the leash very long by that piece of +china-ware piety, and it is to you he will naturally turn for sympathy. +Don't spoil your chance of his friendship by breaking with her yet." + +"Will," his wife said, with a glitter in her eyes he knew of old, +"sometimes you talk like a very fiend incarnate." + +"That," he replied rising, "is precisely what I am. There are a few +rare, but fairly well authenticated cases on record, Helen, where a man +under stress of circumstances, has been able to keep his own counsel; +women without a confidant go mad. For your own sake you'd better trust +me, now that Arthur isn't available; so I'll come and see you again. I +am obliged to you for this jolly little supper. Your salads always were +perfection. I'd like to stay and have you make me some coffee, but I +have an engagement at twelve. Good-night." + + + +XXI. + +HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; iv.--2. + + +When Grant Herman attempted to speak with Mrs. Greyson at the Fenton's +reception, he had more in view than simply the desire of being near the +woman he loved. He was full of trouble and bewilderment, and +instinctively turned toward her for aid and sympathy. + +The scene between himself and Helen, to which the latter had alluded in +her conversation with Dr. Ashton, was of far deeper import than her +words might have seemed to imply. In the first shock of discovering +that her work was broken she had been so overcome, that although she +struggled bravely to conceal her feelings, she had excited the +sculptor's keenest pity; and it not unnaturally followed that in +attempting to express his sympathy he found himself telling his love +before he was aware. He had determined to be silent upon this subject. +Uncertain what were Helen's feelings towards him and restrained by a +sense of loyalty to the bond which united him to Ninitta, he had +resolved to bury his love in his own breast, at least until time gave +him opportunity of honorably declaring it. Now circumstances betrayed +him into an avowal of his passion; and he was not without the indignant +feeling that Ninitta's act had freed him from all obligations to her. +It might have required an ingenious casuist to arrive logically at the +conclusion that an injury which the Italian had done to another +released him from his plighted word, but the person injured was the +woman he loved, and he blindly felt that Ninitta had struck at himself +through his most sensitive feelings. He renounced all the fealty to +which he had been held by a sense of honor, and he now poured out to +Helen the full tide of his passionate love. + +The sculptor was not a man to be lightly moved, but it is these calm, +grave natures that once aroused are most irresistible. His passionate +outburst took Helen unaware; she scarcely knew what she did, and she +became suddenly aware of a truth so overwhelming that every thing else +faded into insignificance beside it. + +"I love you!" he cried out; and at the word she first knew, with a +poignant pang of mingled bliss and anguish, that she too loved him. + +It seemed to her that some power above her own volition ruled her, as +in moments of high excitement the body sometimes appears to declare its +independence of the will, and to act wholly by its own decisions. She +was aware that she raised her eyes to his, although she would have +given much to avoid his glance; and she knew that it was from what he +read there that he took courage to fold her in his embrace. + +Yet with his arms about her and his piercing kisses upon her face, +Helen felt as if sinking helplessly into a mighty ocean; as if all +struggles must be unavailing, and she could only yield to the +resistless love which engulfed her. + +From this first feeling of powerlessness, however, her strong nature +sprang with a sharp recoil. She was too noble to surrender without a +struggle. She would not even think whether she loved this man; that +might be considered upon some safe vantage ground; now all energy must +be concentrated upon escaping from the deadly peril in which she found +herself. + +Helen had freed herself as far as she was able from the marriage bond +which had so galled her, and she was glad to forget that such a tie had +ever existed, but she yet remembered that she was still a wife, and the +kiss of a man not her husband overwhelmed her with shuddering +humiliation and fear. She struggled from her lover's embrace with such +an expression of terror upon her face, that he started back amazed and +grieved. + +He began to stammer confused words of contrition, of sorrow, of love, +and of supplication. + +"How could you!" she gasped. "Oh, leave me!" + +There came into her excited mind a way of escape, upon which, even +though it brought with it a sense of baseness, she seized in despair. + +"Ninitta," she said. "Ninitta!" + +He gave her a look of pain which went to her very heart. He did not +move or answer, but his whole soul seemed to look through his dark eyes +in pitiful appeal. + +"Go," she continued, but in a hurried voice which betrayed her +agitation. "Leave me now. Oh, I cannot bear it!" + +And crushed with pain and shame, she buried her face in her hands and +burst into tears. + +Herman made a step towards her, but instantly she recovered herself, +looking up with swimming eyes and lips that quivered despite her utmost +effort. + +"No," she said, "do not touch me. You must go. I cannot bear another +word. Forgive me," she went on rapidly, as he hesitated, still with +those appealing eyes fixed upon her. "Oh, forgive me, but go." + +He turned slowly and moved towards the door. The broken bas-relief, +with its beautiful mutilated figure caught his eye, and seemed again to +remind him that he had at last a right to speak to Helen, unhampered by +the thought of Ninitta. He looked back as if he would even now disobey +her and plead his love anew. But her eyes refused his prayer before it +could be uttered. He lingered still an instant. + +"I cannot go," he broke out suddenly. "I love you! I must stay! I must +at least have an answer. Do you think a man could kiss you once and +then leave you like this?" + +She shivered as if she felt anew his passionate embrace and shrank from +it. She threw her glance about as to discover some means of escape. The +gesture, the look, overwhelmed him with sudden remorse. He trusted +himself not for a single backward look now, but rushed out of the +studio, leaving her sitting there like the princess of the fairy tale +who overcame the genii only by recourse to immortal fire which consumed +her also. + +Alone in his studio the sculptor strode up and down, struggling with +the emotion which mastered him. He debated with himself whether Helen +loved him or not; yet the more carefully he recalled his interview with +her, the more impossible he found it to determine. But hope plucked +courage out of this very uncertainty, and clung to the belief that had +not Helen in her heart some affection for him, she could not have been +so touched. + +But what of Ninitta? He threw back his head and walked down the studio, +his steps sounding sharply upon the hard cement floor. What of Ninitta? +He had absurdly dallied with his supposed obligations to her long +enough. Now, at least, after this outrage, he repeated to himself, he +was free. He was at liberty now--if indeed he had not always been--to +consider what he owed to himself; what to the woman he loved. + +He recalled the hot words he had spoken to the model earlier in the +afternoon when the anger of discovery was fresh upon him, and he felt a +pang of self-reproach. He could not but know how poignant to Ninitta +must be the grief of giving him up, although he assured himself that in +the long years of separation she must have become accustomed to live +without him, and that her grief would be rather fancied than real. Yet +he was too tender-hearted to be wholly at ease after all his reasoning. +He at last started out to find Ninitta, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps +to cast her off forever. At least to come to some definite conclusion +of their doubtful relations. + +But Ninitta was not to be found. She was not in her attic; nor did she +return that night, nor the next day, nor yet the following; and it was +to tell of the model's disappearance, and to ask aid in tracing her, +that Herman had wished to speak to Helen at the Fenton's reception. + + + + +XXII. + +UPON A CHURCH BENCH. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--3. + + +Herman did not see Helen for several days after the reception, but she +came down to the studio Sunday afternoon to begin the repairing of her +mutilated bas-relief. The sculptor heard her step pass his door, and +felt a thrill at the sound for which he had longingly waited every +waking hour since he had heard Helen go out upon the night of Ninitta's +disappearance. + +He waited what seemed to him a long time, forcing himself to perform +certain trifling things needful in the studio, yet Mrs. Greyson had +only been able to get fairly to work before she heard his footstep, and +then his tap upon her door. + +He entered the studio almost hesitatingly, and after the usual +greetings stood looking gravely at the disfigured clay. + +"I began to think you were never coming to restore it," he remarked, +breaking at last the silence. + +"I could not bear to touch it," she returned, not caring to confess +that she had also wished to avoid him until time should have restored +his usual self-control. "But I determined yesterday to begin this +morning, only strangely enough I went to church for the first time +since I came from Europe." + +"Ah!" returned Herman smiling. "I often go to church when I am not too +busy." + +"I hardly supposed that a Pagan was guilty of going to any church where +he could not worship Pasht." + +"One can worship whatever deity he pleases in whatever temple, I +suppose," was his rejoinder. "I'm catholic in my tastes. I do not so +much mind what people worship, if they are only sincere about it." + +"It must be a great comfort to believe every thing, if one only could." + +"There is often danger," he observed, "that we assume it to be a +weakness to believe any thing." + +"It is, I'm afraid," replied she, turning her face from him and +seemingly intent upon her modeling. + +"At least we believe in work," Herman answered, "else we are not +artists. You certainly find joy and support in your art." + +"Yes," Helen said with a sigh; "but I fancy the joy of creation, great +as it is, can never be so satisfying to a woman as to a man. It is +humiliating to confess--or it is presumptuous to boast, I am not sure +which--but a woman is never so fully an artist as a man. He is in great +moments all artist; but a woman is never able to lay herself aside even +in her most imaginative moods." + +"I cannot think you wholly right," her master returned smiling; "but to +go back a little, at least faith is woman's peculiar province and +prerogative. We seem nowadays to pride ourselves upon being superior to +belief in any thing; but it is really a poor enough hypocrisy. If we +really believed nothing, should we ever give up a single selfish desire +or combat any impulse that seizes us. For my part, I am glad to find +men better than their professions. But this," he added with his genial +smile, "is more of a sermon, very likely, than you heard at church." + +"I at least agree with it better than the one I heard at church this +morning. The preacher patronized the Deity so that he shocked me." + +"That troubles me at church," Herman assented; "preachers are so +irreverent." + +Helen stepped back to observe the effects of the work she was doing. + +"Do you think," she ventured, "that it would be possible for me to +induce Ninitta to pose again for the May? If I told her that I am not +angry, that I understand, and that----" + +"But Ninitta is gone!" exclaimed the sculptor, suddenly recalled to +present difficulties. "I have not been able to find her since the day +she did this." + +"Gone!" echoed Helen in dismay; "and you cannot find her?" + +Herman related in detail the steps he had taken to trace Ninitta, all +of which had thus far proved unavailing. He had endeavored to avoid +publicity, but he already began to fear that it would be necessary to +call detectives to his aid. + +"Not yet," Helen said. "Let me try first. Have you seen Mr. Fenton?" + +"No; why? I have been very cautious. I have told nobody but Fred +Rangely." + +Helen reflected a moment. Her woman's instinct told her that it was not +likely Ninitta would put any great distance between herself and the +sculptor. The model could have but few acquaintances in the city, and +as she would need support it seemed probable she might try posing for +some of the artists. As this thought crossed her mind, Helen remembered +that Ninitta had promised to pose for Fenton when no longer wanted for +the has-relief. It was therefore possible that Fenton might know +something of the whereabouts of the missing girl; and in any case Helen +had been so used to consulting the artist in any perplexity, that it +was but natural for her thoughts to turn to him now. + +"Let me try," she repeated. "It will be less likely to excite talk if I +look for her; she was my model. Trust the search to me for a day or +two." + +He was only too glad to do so; glad to be released from the burden of +anxiety, as by virtue of some subtle faith in Mrs. Greyson he was; glad +of any thing in which he might obey her; glad above all of any bond of +common interest which might draw them nearer to each other, even if it +were search for the woman who stood between them. + +On her way homeward Helen went into Studio Building, but before she had +climbed half way to Fenton's room, she encountered Dr. Ashton. + +"It is of no use," was his greeting. "He isn't in. His wife has +probably taken him to church." + +"He was at church this morning," Helen answered, putting her hand into +the one Dr. Ashton extended. "I saw him." + +"Did you go to church? What a lark." + +"It was rather a lark," she assented; "only I got wretchedly blue +before the service was done." + +"What church was it? Mrs. Fenton looks as if she'd poise dizzily on +high church altitudes like the angel on St. Angelo." + +"So she does; she goes to the Nativity." + +"How did Arthur look?" + +"Amused at first; then bored; then cross; and finally, when the sermon +was well under way, indignant." + +"And his wife?" + +"His wife, Will," Helen said with a sudden enthusiasm, "looked like a +saint. She really believes all these fables. I wish I did." + +"It will be some fun to watch Arthur's conversion and backsliding," Dr. +Ashton observed, "if he really gets far enough along to be able to +backslide. Where are you going?" + +"To see Arthur. I have an errand." + +"Do you object to my walking with you?" he asked with a deference rare +enough to attract her notice. + +The sun was setting, and the trees on the Common, as yet showing but +faintest signs of coming buds, stood out against the saffron sky. The +long shadows stretched softly over the dull ground, while every slight +prominence was gilded and transfigured by the golden glow which flooded +from the west. The atmosphere had that peculiar brilliancy +characteristic of the season, while the cool and bracing air was full +of that champagne-like exhilaration in which lies at once the +fascination and the fatality of the New England climate. + +It was some time before either broke the silence. + +"How I wish," at length began Helen wistfully. + +"That shows," spoke her husband, as she left the sentence unfinished, +"that you are still under forty. When you have quadrupled your decades +you'll thank your stars for deliverances and ask for nothing more." + +"When I get to that stage, then," she returned, "I'll take poison." + +"Is that a hint?" + +"Life is bad enough now," she continued without heeding the +interruption, "but better a bitter savor than none at all." + +"You should devote yourself to cultivating the approval of conscience +as I do. I only do what I think to be right, you know." + +"But think right whatever you do." + +"Not quite that," returned the Doctor with a laugh, "but the approval +of my conscience--or of my reason, which stands in its place--is +necessary to my happiness, so I change my principles whenever my acts +don't accord with them." + +"So do a great many persons," she responded; "perhaps most of us, for +that matter, only we are seldom honest enough to own it." + +"By the way," queried her companion, as they approached her +destination, "how came Mrs. Fenton so quickly domesticated at the +Church of the Nativity?" + +"There is a young man there--a deacon or a monk; I never know these +high church terms; they are usually faded out pieces of Romanism--that +once wrote an article which enjoyed the honor of being interred in the +Princeton Review when her uncle was one of its editors." + +They reached the doorsteps and Dr. Ashton said good-by. Then he turned +back. + +"By the by," he said. "I walked up with you to make you invite me to +supper again. I enjoyed the last time very much." + +"Did you?" returned his wife, rather carelessly. "Come to-morrow--no, +not until Thursday night." + +"Very well. I am to dine here then, and I'll come and give you an +account of my visit." + + + + +XXIII. + +HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; i.--I. + + +The Fentons were just going to dinner when Helen arrived, and she was +persuaded to dine with them. She was not without some curiosity to +observe her friend in his new relations, and she also found herself +attracted by Edith, although the two women had apparently little in +common. + +The talk at dinner flowed on easily enough, Arthur conversing in the +strain which of old Helen had been pleased to call "amiable," and which +fretted her by being conventional and not wholly sincere. She liked the +artist best when he spoke without restraint, even though she might not +agree with his extravagances and often detected a trace of +artificiality in his clever epigrams. It seemed to her that the whole +tendency of Edith's influence upon her husband was towards restraint, +yet she could not be sure whether the ultimate result upon Fenton's +character might not be beneficial. + +"It depends upon Arthur himself," Helen mused. "If he is strong enough +to endure the struggle of adapting his honest belief to her honest +belief, he will be the better for it. I hope his love of ease will not +make him evade the difficulty. It never used to occur to me how little +I really know Arthur, so that I cannot tell how this will be." + +When the host was enjoying his after dinner cigar, which by especial +indulgence upon the part of Edith he was allowed to smoke in the +parlor, Helen disclosed the object of her visit. + +"Do you remember," she asked, "that model who posed for my May, and was +to come to you next week?" + +"Ninitta? Of course. What of her?" + +"That is precisely what I wish to find out," she responded. "She has +changed her address, and I thought it possible you might know something +of her whereabouts." + +"I have not seen her since the morning when she came into your studio. +Doesn't Herman know?" + +"The truth is," Helen said slowly, weighing her words with regard to +their effect upon Edith, "that she has run away, and we do not know +what has become of her. She went off in a rage, and I am troubled about +her." + +"Is she the Italian you spoke of, Arthur?" interrupted Mrs. Fenton in +her soft voice. "What is she like?" + +"Yes; a black-haired, splendidly shaped girl with piercing black eyes." + +"I think I know where she is," Edith said quietly. + +"You?" the others asked in one breath. + +"You see," Mrs. Fenton explained, turning towards Helen, "I have made +rather a plunge into charity work. Of course I meant to do something, +but I hardly expected to begin quite so soon. But Mr. Candish is my +rector, and he came for me yesterday to go to an Italian family that +cannot speak English well. The children have just been put into our +schools, but they have not advanced very far as yet. Their teacher +asked Mr. Candish to do something for them; they are wretchedly poor. I +wish you could see the place, Mrs. Greyson. Eight people in a room not +so large as this, and such poverty as you could hardly imagine. Yet +these people had taken in another. The mother goes about selling fruit, +and she happened to speak to this girl that I think is Ninitta in her +own language one night. The girl had been wandering about in the cold, +not knowing where to go, and I suppose the sound of her own tongue +touched her heart. Poor thing; she would not speak a word to me. How +strange that I should chance to find her." + +"Thank heaven she is safe," was Helen's inward exclamation. Aloud she +said: "But what is she doing?" + +"Nothing," Edith answered. "She seems to have had a little money, so +that she can pay the family something, and she has helped to take care +of the children. They are Catholics, naturally, and not in Mr. +Candish's parish; but they do not seem to have much religion of any +kind, and keep clear of the priest for some reason." + +"My wife will know more of the North End in a month," Arthur observed +with an effort at good humor which did not wholly conceal from Helen a +trace of annoyance, "than I should in six years. I wonder she can bear +to go into such dirty places. Of course philanthropy is all very well, +but I'd rather take it after it has been disinfected." + +The bitterness in his tone jarred upon Helen. She felt a pang at his +evident dissatisfaction with his wife's views, his want of harmony with +his new surroundings. + +"Arthur must be disciplined," Mrs. Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he +once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, +he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, if from nothing else." + +"Happy!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily. "Does one ever expect to be +happy nowadays? Happiness went out of fashion with our grandmothers' +bonnets." + +"In this world," Edith answered, without any trace in her voice of the +reproof which Helen half expected, "perhaps you are right. The age is +too restless and skeptical for happiness here; but that makes me long +the more for it hereafter." + +"But even in a future life," returned Helen, "I can hardly expect to be +happy, since I shall still be myself." + +"Happiness," was Mrs. Fenton's reply, "is a question of harmony with +surroundings, is it not? And your surroundings in the other life may be +such that you cannot but be happy." + +"No more theology, please," interposed Arthur. "You forget, Edith, that +I have been to church to-day, and too much piety at once might impair +my spiritual digestion forever." + +A perception that the flippancy of his tone shocked his wife, made +Helen turn the conversation again to Ninitta, arranging to go with Mrs. +Fenton in the morning to find the missing girl. + +They fell into silence after this, the twilight deepening until only +the glow of the fire lighted the room. Edith went to the piano and +played a bit of Mozart, wandering off then into the hymn-tunes which +she loved and which were familiar in all orthodox homes of the last +generation: plaintive _Olmutz_ and stately _Geneva_, aspiring +_Amsterdam_ and resonant _St. Martin's_, placid _Boylston_ and grand +_Hamburg, Nuremburg, Benevento, Turner_ and _Old Hundred_; the tunes +of our fathers, the melodies which embody the spirit of the old time +New England Sabbath, a day heavy, constrained and narrow, it may be; +but, too, a day calm, unworldly and pure. + +Arthur's cigar was finished, and he had fallen into a deep reverie, +looking into the coals. He recalled his conversations with Helen before +his marriage. He wondered whether his acquiescence in the limitations +of his present condition, his yielding to his wife's social and +religious views, was an advance or a deterioration. These pious tunes +jarred upon his mood, and he was glad when his wife left the +instrument. His Bohemian instinct stirred within him, and taunted the +ease-loving quality of his nature which put him in subjection to that +which he believed no more now than in the days when he was the most +sharp-spoken of the Pagans. A wave of disgust and self-loathing swept +over him. He turned abruptly in the dusk toward Helen. + +"Sing to us," he said. "Edith has never heard you." + +But Helen had been moved by the melodies, which came to her as an echo +from her childhood. She understood the half-peremptory accent in +Arthur's voice to which she had so often yielded, but to which she +would not now submit. + +"No," she answered. "How can you ask me. My barbaric chant would be +wholly out of keeping here. Some other time I shall be glad to sing for +Mrs. Fenton; now I must go home." + + + + +XXIV. + +IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING. + I. Henry IV.; v.--I. + + +Notwithstanding her previous visit, Mrs. Fenton found it no easy matter +to guide Helen to the place where Ninitta had taken refuge. + +The poorer classes of foreigners in any city are led by similarity of +language and occupations to gather into neighborhoods according to +their nationality, and the Italians are especially clannish. The +fruit-venders and organ-grinders form separate colonies, each +distinguished by the peculiarities incident to the calling of its +inhabitants, the crooked courts in the fruit-sellers' neighborhood +being chiefly marked to outward observance by the number of two-wheeled +hand-carts which, out of business hours, are crowded together there. + +Ninitta was found in a room tolerably clean for that portion of the +city, the old fruit woman who was its mistress having retained more of +the tidiness of thrifty peasant ancestors than most of her class. One +room was made to accommodate the mother and seven children, and during +the absence of the former from home the premises were left in charge of +a girl just entering her teens, who, when Helen and Edith reached the +place, was engaged in preparing the family dinner of maccaroni. The +younger members of the family had just returned from school, and were +noisily clamoring for their share, and all together relating the +incidents of the day. + +Upon a bed in one corner lay the object of their search, her face +flushed, her hair disordered, her eyes wild and vacant. To all +appearances she was in a high fever, and she took no heed of Edith, who +approached the bed and spoke to her. At the sound of Mrs. Greyson's +voice, however, the sick girl gave a cry and raised herself into a +sitting posture. + +"No, no!" she exclaimed in Italian, excitedly, "I will not! I will +not!" + +Helen drew off her gloves and sat down upon the dingy bed beside +Ninitta, regarding her with pitying eyes. + +"You shall not," she answered, in the girl's own language. "You need do +nothing but what you choose." + +The soft tone seemed to calm Ninitta. She allowed Helen to arrange the +soiled and crumpled pillows, and yielded when her self-constituted +nurse wished her to lie down again. The latter procured a bowl of +water, and with her handkerchief bathed the sick girl's face, soothing +her with womanly touches which waked in Edith a new feeling of sympathy +and tenderness. Mrs. Greyson's white fingers, contrasting strongly with +the Italian's clear dark skin, smoothed the tangled hair from the hot +forehead, and all the while her rich, pure voice murmured comforting +words, of little meaning in themselves, perhaps, but sweet with the +sympathy and womanhood which spoke through them. + +Edith meanwhile was not idle. She applied herself to hushing the +boisterous children, and to bringing something like quiet out of the +tumult of the crowded room. She assisted the girl with her maccaroni, +gravely listening to the principles which governed its equitable +distribution, with her own hands giving the grimy little children the +share belonging to each. An air of comfort seemed to come over the +frowsy room after Edith had quietly set a chair straight here, picked +up something from the floor there, and arranged the ragged shade at the +window. Even the little Italians, half barbarians as they were, felt +the change, and were more subdued. + +Ninitta, too, was calmed and soothed, and, with Helen's cool hand upon +her hot brow, she sank presently into a drowse. + +"Mrs. Fenton," Helen whispered, fanning her sleeping patient, "Ninitta +cannot remain here. I must take her home with me. I think she had +better run the risk of being moved than to be ill in this crowded +room." + +"But," remonstrated Edith, somewhat aghast at this summary procedure, +"you do not even know what is the matter with her." + +"No," Helen returned lightly, "but I shall probably discover." + +"Not by finding it something contagious, I hope," her friend said, +laying her hand upon Mrs. Greyson's forehead with a slight, caressing +touch. + +"Can you get me a hack?" Helen asked of the girl who kept the house. + +But the girl had no idea how to obtain one of those vehicles, which she +had been accustomed to see driving about with a certain awe, but +without the hope of ever being able to do more than admire them from a +distance, unless, indeed, she should have the great good fortune of +going to a funeral, when perhaps she might even ride in one, as did +little Sally McMann of the next court, when her mother died. Mrs. +Fenton therefore went herself for the carriage, finding remonstrance in +vain to change her companion's decision. + +During her absence Ninitta awakened, and, while seeming more rational, +was less quiet than before. She repulsed her visitor with angry looks +and muttered defiance. Knowing perfectly well the cause of the girl's +agitation, Helen knew, also, that it was best to go directly to the +root of the matter, and she did so unshrinkingly. + +"You are wrong," she said in Ninitta's ear. "It is you he loves. You +are to go home with me because he wishes it." + +At first the sick girl seemed to gather no meaning from these words, +but as Helen repeated the assurance again and again, in different +phrases and with Herman's name, she became passive, as if she at least +caught the spirit if not the actual significance. + +Mrs. Fenton had some difficulty in finding a carriage, and by the time +she returned Ninitta had yielded herself submissively to Helen's +guidance. + +Mrs. Greyson saw that her charge was carefully protected against the +cold, a matter which the mildness of the day rendered easy, and, +supported by the two ladies, the model was able to walk down stairs to +the carriage. + +During the drive homeward Helen lay back thinking hotly, and flushed +with excitement. Ninitta sank into a doze, and Mrs. Fenton sat looking +at her friend with the air of one who has discovered in an acquaintance +characteristics before wholly unsuspected. She hesitated a little, and +then, mastering her shyness, she bent forward and kissed Helen's hand. + +The other submitted in silence. Indeed, the exaltation of her mood +seemed to lift her above her surroundings so that she felt a strange +remoteness from her companion. Yet she was conscious of a vague twinge +of annoyance at Edith's act, although she could neither have excused +nor defined the feeling. Mrs. Fenton not infrequently aroused in her a +curious mingling of attraction and repulsion; and it was under the +influence of the latter that she answered brusquely her friend's next +remark. + +"How did you quiet Ninitta?" Edith asked. + +"By telling her lies," returned Helen wearily and laconically. + +"What!" + +"She is in no condition to be dealt with rationally," continued Mrs. +Greyson, in a tone explanatory, but in no way defensive, "so I said +whatever would soothe her." + +Edith sat in silent dismay. Apparently the woman before her, by whose +generous self-forgetfulness she had been touched, was perfectly +untroubled by the idea of speaking a falsehood, a state of mind so +utterly beyond Edith's experience as to be incomprehensible to her. She +could not bring herself to remonstrate, but it pained her that such +philanthropy should be stained by what she considered so wrong. + +Mrs. Fenton was perhaps equally mistaken in her opinion of Helen's +regard for truth and of her philanthropy. Mrs. Greyson had a deep +repugnance to falsehood, and Arthur Fenton had often good-humoredly +jeered at what he called her Puritanic scrupulousness in this respect. +On an occasion such as at present, however, the use of an untruth would +cause her not even a second thought, her reason so strongly supporting +her course as even to overcome her instincts; a fact which a moralist +might deplore but which still remains a fact. + +Her philanthropy, upon the other hand, although seeming to Edith so +disinterested, was largely instigated by a desire to aid Grant Herman. +Just what she wished or expected him to do, she could not have told, +her actions being no more regulated by strict logic than those of most +women; but she felt that it was the office of friendship to see, if +possible, that no harm came to the Italian through the jealousy which +both herself and Herman knew to be but too well founded. She determined +to take Ninitta home and do for her all that was necessary, in order +that the sculptor be spared the remorse which would pursue him if harm +came to his old betrothed. She was not without a secret feeling, +moreover, scarcely acknowledged to herself, that she owed some +reparation to the girl whose lover's heart she had won, no matter how +undesignedly. + +Reaching home, she got Ninitta to bed and sent for Dr. Ashton. Then she +dispatched a note to Grant Herman, saying: + +"Ninitta is with me; give yourself no uneasiness." + + + + +XXV. + +THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME. + +Measure for Measure; iv.--4. + + +Ninitta's illness proved after all very slight. So slight, indeed, that +Dr. Ashton, calling in on his way to dine with the Fentons Thursday +evening, found her gone. She had insisted upon returning to her attic, +although Helen had not allowed her to depart without promising not to +abscond a second time. + +Ninitta was grateful to Mrs. Greyson with all the ardor of her +passionate southern heart. She did not, it is true, understand the +relations between Herman and Helen, but even her jealousy was lost in +the gratitude she felt for the beautiful woman who had cared for her, +and it is not unlikely saved her from a dangerous illness. It did not +seem possible to the undisciplined Italian, versed only in crude, +simple emotions, that a woman who was her rival could treat her with +tenderness. She accepted Helen's kindness as indisputable proof that +the latter did not love the sculptor, a conclusion which the premises +scarcely warranted. She volunteered to pose again, and Mrs. Greyson, +thinking it well to keep the girl under her influence, and desiring a +return to at least the semblance of the peaceful existence preceding +the stormy episode just ended, eagerly accepted this offer, only +stipulating that the model should undertake nothing until she was +really well able. + +"I shall come back to supper," Dr. Ashton said, as he left his wife. "I +have half a mind not to go to Fenton's; only it amuses me to watch the +fellow's degeneration." + +"It never amuses me to watch any degradation," she returned gravely. +"How do you know he is degenerating? If you mean by following his wife, +why, they may be right after all, and what we call superstition the +veriest truth." + +"Of course," answered he. "I never pretended to administer the +exclusive mysteries of truth; but it is always a degradation to yield +to personal influence at the expense of conviction. Arthur is as much +of a heathen to-day as he ever was, only he is too fond of comfort to +have the courage of his opinions." + +Helen sighed. + +"Truth to me," she said thoughtfully, "is whatever one sincerely +believes; I cannot conceive of any other standard. One man's truth is +often another's falsehood." + +"You are as dull as a preface to-night, Helen; what carking care is +gnawing at your vitals?" + +"Nothing in particular. A certain melancholy is befitting a widow, you +know, and that's what I am supposed to be." + +"On the contrary there is a certain vivacity about the word widow to my +mind." + +"Your experience has been wider than mine. I am aware that I am too +much given to vast moral reflections, but you provoke them." + +"I am sorry to provoke you," he said gayly. "Forgive me before supper +time; who knows what rich experiences I may have between now and then. +Good-by." + +As he walked toward his appointment, could Dr. Ashton's vision have +reached to the house whither he was going, he would have seen Arthur +Fenton and his wife sitting together before an open fire awaiting their +guest. The artist was showing Edith a portfolio of sketches by foreign +painters, which he had brought from his studio. + +"What a strange uncanny thing this is," he remarked, holding one up. +"It is just like Frontier; I never saw any thing more characteristic. I +wonder you got so few of his tricks, Edith, while you studied with +him." + +"He always repelled me. I was afraid of him. Where did you get this +sketch?" + +"Dr. Ashton gave it to me." + +"Dr. Ashton!" + +"Yes; when he was in Paris, both he and his wife were intimate with +Frontier. Or at least Will was." + +"Oh, Arthur!" + +She leaned forward in her chair, her always pale face assuming a new +pallor. Laying her hand upon her husband's, she asked in a quick, +excited manner: + +"Do you know how Frontier died?" + +"I know he died suddenly; now you speak of it, I have an idea it was a +case of _felo de se_. You know I was in Munich at the time." + +"Arthur," Edith said earnestly, "I have never told even you; but I saw +Frontier die. I had a pass-key to his studio, and his private rooms +were just behind it. That night I went in on my way from dinner--Uncle +Peter and I had been dining together, and I left him at the door with +the carriage--after a study I'd forgotten. We were going to Rome the +next morning, and I didn't want to leave it. The picture was at the +further end of the studio, and as I went down the room I heard voices +and saw that Frontier's door was open. He sat at a table with a tiny +wine-glass in his hand. A man who stood back to me said, just as I came +within hearing: 'It is none of my affair, and I shall not interfere; +but you'll allow me to advise you not to be rash.' I could not hear +Frontier's answer, partly because I paid no attention, of course never +suspecting the truth. But as I went towards my easel, Frontier, hearing +the noise, I suppose, and afraid of being interrupted, caught up the +glass and drank what was in it. The other man sprang forward just in +time to catch him as he fell back, and it suddenly came over me that he +was taking poison. I cried out and ran into the room, but it seemed +only an instant before it vas all over. Oh, it was terrible, Arthur, +terrible!" + +She covered her agitated face with her hands, as if to shut out the +vision which rose before her. Her husband sat in silent astonishment, a +conviction growing in his mind of whom the other witness of Frontier's +death must have been. + +"Arthur," Edith broke out suddenly, "that man was no better than a +murderer. He let Frontier kill himself. When I cried out, 'Oh, why +didn't you stop him!' he said as coolly as if I had asked the most +trivial question, 'Why should I? What right had I to interfere?' It was +terrible! He seemed to me a perfect fiend!" + +"It was--who was it?" demanded her husband, a name almost escaping him +in his excitement. + +"It was Dr. Ashton; the man who is coming to sit down at your table +to-night. Arthur, I cannot meet him! I knew when he came to our +reception that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where. There +is his ring now. Let me get by you!" + +"But where are you going?" Fenton asked in amazement. + +"To my room. Any where to get out of his way." + +"But what shall I tell him?" + +"The truth; that I will not sit down to eat with a murderer." + +She vanished from the room, leaving her husband alone. Dr. Ashton's +step was already upon the stair, and however keenly Mrs. Fenton might +feel the wickedness of the Doctor in not preventing Frontier's +self-destruction, the action was too strictly in accord with Arthur's +own views to allow of his condemning it. His friend found him in a +state of confusion which instantly connected itself in the guest's mind +with the non-appearance of Edith, an impression which was strengthened +by the lameness of the excuses tendered for her absence. Dr. Ashton not +unnaturally concluded that he had just escaped stumbling upon a family +quarrel. He accepted whatever his host chose to say, and the two +proceeded rather gloomily to dinner. + +In Arthur's mind there sprang an irritation against both his wife and +his friend. His instincts were all protective, that term including +comfort as well as self-preservation. He was intensely annoyed at his +wife's attitude, and began to vent his spleen in cynical speeches, +which since his marriage had been rare with him. + +"Christian grace," he declared, "is exactly like milk; excellent and +nourishing while it is fresh, but hard to get pure, and even then sure +to sour." + +"Say something more original if you are cross, Arthur," observed his +friend good humoredly. "What is the matter? Is it a new rug or a +Japanese bronze you are dying for?" + +"Hang rugs and bronzes," retorted Arthur, with a vicious determination +to be ill-natured. "If I can get the necessities of life, I am lucky." + +"Nonsense," was the reply. "It isn't that. The lack of the necessities +of life makes a man sad; it is the lack of luxuries that makes him +cynical." + +Dr. Ashton was perfectly right in his inward comment that Fenton was +secretly regretting his marriage. This was the thought that filled +Arthur's mind. It was true he had had no absolute disagreement with his +wife, although it is not impossible that it might have come to this, +had a delay in the guest's arrival allowed time. But it filled the +husband with an unreasoning rage that Edith presumed to establish so +strict a code of morals. He felt that her position as his wife demanded +more conformity to his standards. Why need she trouble herself about +that which did not concern her, and sit in such lofty judgment upon the +morals of her neighbors? Did she propose keeping Dr. Ashton's +conscience as well as her own--and his? Certainly those whom the +husband found worthy his friendship it ill became the wife to +stigmatize and avoid. He sat moodily tearing his fish in pieces instead +of eating; for the moment wholly forgetting his duty as host. + +"If you'll pardon my mentioning it," Dr. Ashton said at length, "you +are about as cheerful company as a death's head. You are so melancholy +that I am tempted to fling in your face one of my old epigrams; that +love is a gay young bachelor who can never be persuaded to marry and +settle down." + +The other laughed and made an effort to shake off his gloom; but with +so little success that his guest resolved to escape at the earliest +moment possible. Something in Fenton's forced talk, however, attracted +Dr. Ashton's attention. + +"My wife was a pupil of Frontier." + +The simple phrase, which had escaped Arthur's lips because it had been +in his mind not to allude to this fact, might have gone unnoticed had +not the speaker himself so strongly felt the shock of disclosure as to +show sudden confusion. The whole matter was at once clear to Dr. +Ashton, who having recognized Edith at the reception, had been prepared +for identification in his own turn. + +"So that," he observed calmly, "is the reason Mrs. Fenton does not dine +with us to-night. I knew she was sure to recognize me sooner or later; +but as I had no motive for concealing this matter, on the other hand I +had no reason for recalling so unpleasant a circumstance to her mind." + +There was a pause of a moment, and then the Doctor continued: + +"I think Frontier was rather foolish. I told him so. A charming little +Hungarian girl of whom he was fond, had left him to follow the fortunes +of a Polish Count, or something of the sort. I do not see why a man +should kill himself for so trifling a thing as a woman; but if he chose +to, I am not one of those officious persons who feel justified in +interfering with any private act they don't happen to approve. I +certainly should resent such impertinent intrusion into my own +affairs." + +"And I," assented Arthur doggedly; "but my wife----" + +"Certainly; I understand. Mrs. Fenton says hard things of me because I +would not rob poor Frontier of what little comfort he could get from +dying. Very well; I will not offend her by my presence. Only she is +setting herself a hard task in attempting to treat people according to +their conservatism. In these days the sheep and goats have come to be +so much alike in appearance, that I scarcely see how a mere mortal is +to distinguish between them. My own case I settle for her by avoiding +her house." + +"But this is my house," protested Arthur, intensely chagrined. + +"No," his guest replied, still smiling and moving toward the door. "It +is the nest you have built for your love and your--regeneration! Good +night." + + + + +XXVI. + +THERE BEGINS CONFUSION. + I Henry VI.; iv.--i. + + +Alone in her own room, Edith relieved her overwrought feelings by a +burst of tears, brief, indeed, but bitter. Like her husband, she felt +that this incident, although not assuming the guise of a quarrel, was +an opening wedge in the unity of their affection. Unlike Arthur, +however, she thought of it with self-reproach and misgiving. She did +not for an instant consider the possibility of having taken a different +position in regard to Dr. Ashton, yet in a womanly, illogical way, she +felt that she should have learned her husband's wishes before so +vehemently declaring her own views. + +She heard the artist and his guest go in to dinner, and the thought +flashed upon her that this was the first time her husband had dined +without her since their marriage. She wondered if he remembered it, +and, remembering, regretted. She longed for companionship, for some +friend into whose sympathetic ear she could pour her story, from whom +she might ask advice. She reflected sadly how far she was removed from +her intimate friends. Of her new acquaintances many had been most kind +to her, but towards none of them, not even to her relatives, had she +been so strongly drawn as to wish now to go to them for confidence and +sympathy; unless, came a second thought, it were Mrs. Greyson. She was +a widow, Edith reflected, and had evidently suffered much, while the +strength of her character was evident from her dealing with the Italian +girl. It would be no disloyalty to go to her; there had been no words +spoken between husband and wife which could not be told a friend, and +Edith felt that she needed the advice of a woman more versed in the +intricacies of life than herself. + +She dressed herself for walking, and slipped noiselessly out of the +house. + +Mrs. Greyson was at dinner, and was naturally surprised at seeing her +caller, but she had both too much tact and too much breeding to ask +explanations. + +"I do hope you have not dined," she said. "I am so much alone that it +is a perfect delight to me to have company. My dinner is a little like +a picnic, but if you will only consider how great a favor you are doing +me by sharing it, the consciousness of philanthropy ought to make it +palatable." + +Neither lady mentioned Arthur, although his name was uppermost in the +thoughts of both. They sat down together in Helen's tiny dining-room, +and served by her only maid, had a charming meal. The hostess exerted +herself to entertain her guest, wisely judging that what Edith said in +calmness she would be far less likely to regret than words uttered in +the unguarded moments of her excitement. She told Mrs. Fenton stories +of her studio life both in Boston and abroad, she led Edith on to speak +of her own travels and experiences, until the latter almost forgot that +she was dining in one house and her husband in another. It was not +until the coffee was reached, coffee made as only Helen could make it, +that the subject of the visit was really broached. + +"How is Mr. Fenton?" Helen asked deliberately, believing the time had +come for such a question. + +The face of the other fell. She experienced a pang at the consciousness +of having been gay and happy, forgetful of her husband and her trouble. + +"He is well," she answered falteringly. + +"Why did you not bring him with you?" continued Mrs. Greyson lightly, +yet with a secret determination to know the cause of her guest's +evident disturbance. + +"He did not know I was coming," Edith responded in a low voice. "That +is what I came to talk about. I thought you might understand; but it +involves a third person, and perhaps I ought not to tell you. I am +sure, though," she went on, gaining confidence now that the ice was +broken, "that I can trust you. A friend of Arthur's came to dine +to-night, and just as the door-bell rang, I found him to be the man I +once saw commit murder in Paris." + +"Murder!" exclaimed Helen, turning white. "Commit murder?" + +"Consent to it," corrected Edith, unconsciously a little pleased to +have produced so great an effect upon her usually self-possessed +friend. "He looked on while Frontier took poison, without trying to +prevent him." + +"But that," Mrs. Greyson said slowly, "is hardly the same thing as +murder." + +"It is quite as bad," Edith protested earnestly. "It makes me shudder +to think of his dining alone with Arthur at this moment. Who knows what +might happen!" + +"Nothing tragic, I think," Helen replied smiling. "He does not go about +with pistols in his belt, I suppose.' + +"It is awful to me," Edith continued, with increasing excitement, too +much stirred to notice the sarcasm. "I told Arthur I could not sit down +with a murderer, and just at that moment we heard his step, and I ran +away upstairs; and then I felt dreadfully, and I came to you." + +"I thank you for your confidence. But what do you mean to do? What will +Arthur tell him?" + +"The truth, I hope." + +"He is scarcely likely to say to the guest he has himself invited that +you think him a murderer," answered her friend, smiling again, "and I +am not sure that he would even look at this quite so severely as you +do." + +"How else can he look at it?" demanded Edith. "How else can any one +look at it? Isn't it murder to take human life, and if one does not +prevent suicide when he might, isn't it the same as if he did it +himself?" + +"We will not get into a discussion," Helen replied gently. "I feel +about it as you do; though I believe very differently. But I see +perfectly well how a man might be strictly honest in thinking that it +was the privilege of any human being to lay aside his life when he is +weary of it; and I do not presume to condemn others for feeling what I +only think I believe." + +"Think you believe!" cried the other in horror. "You do not think you +believe that murder is right?" + +"Assuredly not; but as there are so many related points upon which we +do not agree, would it not be better to talk of this particular case +than of general belief?" + +"But it is impossible for any one to believe as you say," persisted +Edith; "simply impossible. No one can believe that wrong is right." + +"But each has his own standard." + +Against this Edith protested, but Helen returned no answer. She +regretted being involved in such a debate, and resolved to let the +discussion go no further. They sat in silence a moment, and then Edith +again spoke. + +"I do not know what to do," she said. "Of course Arthur cannot know +that man any longer. You were in Paris at the time Frontier died, were +you not? Did you ever know----" + +She broke off suddenly, remembering that she had not intended +disclosing the name of her guest. + +"Dr. Ashton?" Helen returned, fixing her eyes upon her companion, and +unconsciously speaking with a deliberation which gave especial weight +to her words. "Yes; I know him. We went to Paris together." + +"Together! Was he a friend of your husband? How did you know whom I +meant?" + +There was no perceptible pause before Helen answered; but meanwhile she +determined to throw aside all concealment. She could no longer stand +before Arthur Fenton's wife with the humiliation of even a tacit +deception between them. She felt a spirit of defiance rising within +her. Who was this woman that she assumed the right to judge them all by +standards for whose narrowness only contempt was possible! At least she +would rise above all conventional prejudices, and no longer tacitly +ask, as by silence she had done, exemption from the harsh judgments of +Mrs. Fenton's creed. + +Helen was too womanly not to shrink from this disclosure, and she had +been too thoroughly educated in the faith by which Edith lived not to +understand just how her life would appear seen through the latter's +belief. Disconnected with a question relating to the marriage relation +and by implication casting reflection upon her delicacy and even purity +of life as a woman separated from her lawful husband, Helen could have +met with dispassionate reasoning whatever assault Edith made upon her. +This point was too vital, it touched too closely the core of her +woman's nature, and although she retained perfectly her self-control, +there was a pulse of passion in her voice when she spoke. + +"Dr. Ashton," she said unflinchingly, "is my husband." + +"What?" cried Edith. + +"We have not found it convenient to live together," Helen continued, +with increasing calmness, a faint tinge of contempt creeping into her +voice, "and so since my return from Europe I have taken my mother's +name to avoid gossip. Dr. Ashton and I are very good friends still." + +"And did Mr. Fenton know this?" asked the other, very pale. + +"Certainly; although you understand that it is not a matter which we +discuss with the world at large. I pass, I believe, as a widow; though +I have never done or said any thing to give color to that idea." + +It is doubtful if Helen fully comprehended the effect of these words +upon her guest. Every fiber of Edith's being tingled. All her most +sacred principles seemed outraged. She in some remote way felt, +moreover, as if to hear without protest so lax notions of the +responsibilities of marriage was to stain her womanhood and dim the +luster of her modesty. + +"How dared he introduce you to me?" she cried. "You are the wife of a +murderer and you defend his crime; you pretend to be a widow, you +ignore your marriage----" + +"Stop," the hostess said with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. +Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in +seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. +You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have +kept it from your knowledge." + +But Edith made her no answer. She was too much overwhelmed by the +various emotions which the disclosure of the evening had aroused. + +Edith was, from Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but +the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's +vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity +arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and +doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by +its jar the most ordinary affairs of life. + +Edith was pure, high minded, simple souled, and for the rest she was +honest and earnest. Her creeds were vitalized by the warm fervor with +which she clung to them, and what more could be demanded of her? + +She quitted the dining-room, and soon Helen heard the outer door close +behind her. The night gathered, and the lonely woman left behind sat +long in sad reverie, until the door was again opened to admit Dr. +Ashton. + + + + +XXVII. + +WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE. + Hamlet; i.--2. + + +Dr. Ashton came in too full of his own interview with Arthur to notice +particularly if his wife showed signs of agitation. + +"My dear," he said, throwing himself into a chair, "it is at once one +of the latest and the wisest of my reflections that you had better +consider a newly married man as an entire stranger and form his +acquaintance quite from the foundation, wholly unbiased by any notion +you had of him as a bachelor." + +"His wife," responded Helen quietly, "has been dining with me, so I +understand something of the situation. But how did Arthur behave?" + +"Like any husband who does not care to quarrel with his wife even when +he disapproves of her. It is upon that principle that matrimonial +felicity depends. Do you say Mrs. Fenton has been here?" + +"Yes; she came to me for sympathy and I administered it by telling her +that I am your wife." + +"The devil! I beg your pardon; but, Helen, it was precisely because I +knew she was sure to remember this Frontier scrape that I wanted her +not to know. She will be very hard on you." + +"Christianity is always hard," returned she; "but what difference does +it make; it was only a question of time. She is sweet and pure and +good, Will, but her religion holds her in bands stronger than steel. I +couldn't long keep step with one in chains. It might as well come now +as any time." + +Her husband looked at her with evident interest not unmixed with +admiration. + +"She provokes me to do and to say childish things," Helen continued, +"just to shock her. I told her bluntly the other day that I had been +telling a falsehood, and she had the impertinence to look shocked. I am +not sure that I did not go so far as to say I 'lied,' a word that +hardly holds the place in English that it did in the good days of Mrs. +Opie. She would have been reconciled if I had said I told what I hoped +was true." + +"I should have told her," laughed Dr. Ashton, "that I only used truth +as the Egyptians used straw in bricks, the smallest possible quantity +that will hold the rest together." + +"I cannot see why Arthur married her," Helen said musingly. + +"Oh, as to that, an idle man will fall in love with any pretty woman +who will snub him." + +"But Arthur isn't idle, and she doesn't snub him." + +"Very well; he married her because he fell in love for no reason but +the weakness of our sex." + +"Love seems generally to be regarded by the masculine mind in the light +of a weakness." + +"Isn't it?" her husband returned. "Love is the condition of desiring +the impossible, and if that is not a weakness, what becomes of logic?" + +"I am tired of logic," she said, rising abruptly. "I am tired of every +thing. Let us have supper. I want a glass of wine. I am sure I tried to +be kind to Mrs. Fenton. I would have helped her if I could; but how +could I assist her unless she chose to let me, and that, too, knowing +who I am." + +"I never knew you to be other than kind," was the grave reply, which +brought to Helen's cheek a faint flush of pleasure. + +The servant came in with supper, and the slender glasses were filled +with Rhine wine. + +"I could not help thinking," Dr. Ashton said, lifting his glass,--"I +drink to your very good health, my dear--I could not help thinking of +my wedding gift to Arthur, that he asked me for it, I mean." + +"I thought of it, too, when his wife told me the story. It is well she +does not know that of you." + +"Oh, it wouldn't matter," he said carelessly. "She couldn't feel a +greater horror of me than she does already. Do you see the mark of Cain +on my forehead, Helen?" + +"Isn't it droll," she returned, with a smile half pensive, half +humorous, "to feel ourselves suddenly tried by new standards and found +so wanting. I am not sure but dramatic propriety demands that I should +poison Mrs. Fenton. I have that vial, you know." + +"Did you notice the inscription on the vial?" + +"No; is there one?" + +"See for yourself," he answered, refilling his glass. + +She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco +case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and +distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her +place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, +shining upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue +dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her +delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within +these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more +truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him +through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in +speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in +his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He +had determined to speak his passion, but as he looked at his wife +sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay +between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the +tiny cut-glass vial from its velvet bed. + +"How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily +lifting it to her nostrils. + +"Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly. + +"Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off. + +"It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely +stopped." + +She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the glass. + +"'Death foils the gods,'" she read. "Is it one of your own +wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to +Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she +has lost." + +"What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is +pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd +sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant +body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned +reprobate." + +"Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of +destroying your peace of mind." + +"I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind +the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands." + +"Yes," assented the other, "himself." + +She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-glass vial. + +"How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We +become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the +shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the +theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness." + +"That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it +ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of +cheese." + +"There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing +over the table. + +"Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that +fact. "It is of no consequence." + +"Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it." + +She restored the vial to its place, laying the closed case by her +plate, and left the room. The instant the door closed behind her, Dr. +Ashton reached across the table, possessed himself of the vial, +returning the case to its former position. His wife turned just outside +the door, and came back with a meaning smile to take up the empty case +and lock it again in the cabinet. + +"I cannot trust you," she remarked with a smile; "you are too eager to +foil the gods." + +He smiled in return, holding his wine-glass up to the light. + +"There is more where that came from," he said. "You forget my +profession." + +"Of what are you musing so intently?" Helen queried, half an hour +later, while, the supper being ended, her husband was enjoying his +cigar. + +"Of two things which I have to communicate. One is a folly and the +other--or perhaps I should say each--is a misfortune." + +"The folly," returned she, "I forgive; the misfortune I regret. What +are they?" "I am glad you forgive the folly. That gives me boldness to +tell it. I have fallen in love." + +"You, Will! With whom?" + +"That is the madness of it. With my wife." + +"Will!" + +"It is the truth," he went on, half whimsically, but with a certain +ring of earnestness in his tone. "I acknowledge the madness, the poor +taste of a man's falling in love with his own wife, but the fact +stubbornly remains. I have been in love with you for a long time, but I +stood back for Arthur like a good fellow." + +"I never was in love with Arthur," she interrupted. + +"It is no matter," he continued. "The question is, can't you get up a +grain of grace for me, old lady?" + +He leaned over the table, his dark eyes shining as she had never seen +them before. She was fascinated by his gaze; she felt as if the ground +were slipping from beneath her feet, and as though he were casting upon +her an evil spell. A wave of despair swept over her. Must she again +submit to his power; were the old days of bitter bondage to return; was +she nothing but a puppet to his will? + +In this extremity a memory saved her. Unable to withdraw her gaze from +her husband's face, there came to her suddenly the look in the eyes of +Grant Herman that day when he told her his love. The blood surged to +her cheeks, but her calmness returned. + +"It is of no use, Will," she said with gentle firmness. "All that is +past forever between us. We had better not speak of it," she added +wistfully. "I have so few friends that I cannot bear to lose any one of +them." + +"My folly is then my misfortune," he responded, with no appearance of +diminished good humor. "It is the pleasure of the gods to torment me; I +suppose it amuses them. The old Romans were only aping them in their +blood-thirsty sports, and I fancy that is the secret of their +deification, for nothing seems so much to the liking of the gods as to +torment humanity." + +The evident endeavor which the speaker made to appear flippant and at +his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without +fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled +man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She +turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-glass. +Her own life had been too sad for her not to feel some emotion at his +words. She strove to repress the thoughts which made her bosom swell +and heave, yet it was from them her words came when she broke the +silence. + +"It is bitterest to find one's self mistaken. To find that our gods are +only clay like the rest of humanity. I could forgive a friend for +neglect, abuse or any cruelty; but I could never forgive him for +falling below my ideal of him." + +"You do not mean me," he returned placidly, "for of me you never had an +ideal; but waiving that for a moment, I should like to tell you of my +second misfortune--if it isn't to be reckoned a blessing." + +She looked at him without speaking. If this disclosure were but a +repetition in varied form of the other, she had no wish to help him put +it into words. Yet even as this thought passed through her mind, she +fancied she had detected in his tone some new gravity. + +"I've discovered," continued Dr. Ashton, with the same light manner he +had used throughout the interview, "that I have a cancer gayly but with +grim persistency developing under my arm." + +"Oh, Will," Helen cried, clasping her hands, "you are not in earnest!" + +"I assure you it is a very earnest matter with me, and has been for +some time. I might have an operation, I suppose, if it were worth +while; though it is so near the heart that it would be uncomfortably +risky." + +Helen became suddenly calm. The color faded slowly from her cheeks, and +her husband, watching her narrowly, saw her beautiful lips assume a new +expression of firmness and determination. She unconsciously lifted her +head into a more erect carnage. Her eyes were moist and full of +feeling. Slowly in her mind formed a resolve, and with a full knowledge +of the renunciation of self which it involved, she called up all the +nobility of her soul to aid her in living up to it. Creeds were little +to this woman, yet her life was formed upon the principles which give +to creeds their stability, and by which the moral is removed from the +animal. + +"Will," she at length said, slowly and gravely, "could it not be +arranged for me to live with you? You did not tell me you were fond of +me without having thought out the possibilities." + +"I should have hesitated to ask so much," was his reply, "even of your +love; I shall certainly not take it of your pity." + +"My pity?" she murmured, not raising her eyes. "What do you mean?" + +"You know. You cannot think me so dull as not to see that your proffer +comes not from affection, but from generosity. I thank you, but I will +accept no sacrifices." + +He rose as he spoke, and put out his hand. + +"I must be going," he said in an indifferent tone. "I have letters to +write that must be mailed by midnight. I am not more than half as bad, +Helen, as you have always persisted in thinking. I never made very +profound pretensions, but I've treated every body squarely from my own +point of view. If they have regarded my blessings as curses, it wasn't +my fault, and I am not sufficiently hypocritical to pretend that I +think it was. Good night." + +He gave her hand a warmer and more lingering pressure than usual. + +"I've had a very pleasant evening," he added, "despite the admixture of +truth. Young people don't like any bitters, but we old, shattered +wrecks need a dash of it in the wine of life to help digestion. Good +night." + + + + +XXVIII. + +LIKE COVERED FIRE. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--I. + + +That night marked an epoch in the married life of Arthur and Edith +Fenton. + +The results of matrimony upon character are for the most part slow and +hardly perceptible, yet even so not without certain well-defined stages +by which their progression forces itself into recognition; and in +fervid temperaments like that of the artist, any change is sure to be +rapid, and marked by sharp and sudden crises. + +Edith returned from Helen with her soul in a tumult. Grant Herman had +described more than her face when he applied to her the epithet +nun-like. It was a source of perpetual wonderment to many of her +friends that such a girl could be so strongly attracted by Arthur +Fenton; but those who knew his marvelous flexibility, the unconscious +hypocrisy with which he adapted himself to any nature with which he +came in contact, and on the other hand his fascinating manner, at once +brilliant and sympathetic, felt Edith's love to be the perfectly +natural consequence. She believed him to be what she wished, and he, +without conscious deceit, became for the time being what she believed +him to be. + +It was a theory of Dr. Ashton's that what Arthur Fenton became was so +purely a question of environment as to leave the artist all but +irresponsible. This fatalistic view he had laid before his wife with +some detail, at once explaining and defending his position. + +"If a chameleon is put upon a black tree," he said on one occasion when +the matter was under discussion, "you have really no right to blame him +for becoming black too; it is simply his nature. If Arthur is like that +it isn't his fault. He wasn't consulted, I fancy, about how he should +be made at all. He is self-indulgent, and if a point hurts him he +glides away from it. He cannot help it." + +"There is something in what you say," Helen had reluctantly assented, +"but I think you put it far too strongly." + +"Oh, very likely," was the careless reply. "His strongest instinct, +though, is to escape pain. We are none of us better than our +instincts." + +To such a decision as this, had she heard it, Edith, too religious to +acknowledge any thing tending towards fatalism, would not for a moment +have agreed; yet it embodied a truth destined to cause her deepest +sorrow, and which was gradually forcing itself upon her. Already, +although they had been married so few weeks, even her love-blinded eyes +could not but perceive much in her husband which shocked and pained +her. She had not considered deeply enough, never having had the +experience which would have taught her the need of considering, how +great was the gulf between her moral standpoint and that of her +betrothed. He had seemed so yielding that she had failed to perceive +that his compliances were merely outward, and left his mental attitude +unchanged. Now when it became necessary, as in every wedded life it +must sooner or later, for her to appeal to his ultimate moral belief, +she was startled to find nothing with which she was in sympathy. A +cynic--or, indeed, her husband himself--would have assured her that it +was, after all, a question of standards merely, and that difference of +judgment was natural and inevitable, and that measured by his own +convictions Arthur was quite well enough. Her answer to such a +proposition would have been that there was but one standard, and that +what differed from that were not moral principles at all, but excuses +for immoral obliquity. + +Outwardly, it is true, there was little in her husband's life of which +Edith could complain. He accompanied her to church, and if he quizzed +the preacher after returning home, she was ready to excuse this as the +natural result of a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. He allowed her +to do as she chose in the matter of charity work, and he even refrained +from going to his studio on Sunday, a sacrifice whose magnitude she had +no means of estimating, and which she therefore thought would be +continuous. It was when some ethical question arose between them that +Edith was disquieted, feeling sometimes as if she were looking into +black deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most +sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only +her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude +were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; +and Edith found argument impossible with one who denied her every +premise. + +His old acquaintances found in Arthur Fenton a change more subtle but +none the less distasteful. It was a trait of his nature to assume the +character he was half unconsciously acting, as a player may between the +scenes still feel the personality he is simulating upon the stage; and +there was about Fenton when he came in contact with the Pagans, a vague +air of remonstrance and disapproval, even when he was as bold as ever +in his own cynical utterances. + +"An expression of virtuous indignation isn't becoming in you, Fenton," +Rangely said to him one day. "Especially in a discussion which you +started yourself by the most shocking piece of wickedness I ever +heard." + +And among all the Pagans there existed a yet unspoken feeling that +Fenton was ceasing to be one of them. + +On returning from Helen's, Edith found her husband still engaged with +Dr. Ashton, but as soon as the latter had gone Arthur came to her room. + +"Well," he said, sinking leisurely into a chair. "Do you feel any +milder? Have you had your dinner?" + +"Yes," she returned, not leaving her seat on the opposite side of the +room. "I have been dining with Mrs. Ashton." + +"What!" cried Arthur, as if a bomb had exploded at his feet. Then he +sank back into his languid position. "So she has told you," he remarked +carelessly. + +"Yes, she has told me. Did you know, Arthur, when you brought us +together, that she was living under a false name, and under false +pretenses?" + +"I knew certainly," replied her husband with a coolness that marked his +inward irritation, "that her legal name was Ashton. I have still to +learn that she is living under false pretenses." + +"Is it not false," retorted Edith, with difficulty controlling her +voice, her indignation increasing with every word, "to pass as widow, +to live separated from her husband?" + +"Oh, false? Why, in your stiff, conventional definition of the word +that calls the letter every thing, the spirit nothing, I dare say it is +false; but what of that? She has a right to do as she pleases, has she +not?" + +Edith drew herself back in her chair and looked at him across the dimly +lighted chamber. It is but justice to her husband to consider that he +could not dream of the anguish she suffered. It was, as he so often +said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, +even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply +high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was +neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which +she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of +right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous +lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter +than the knowledge that the truth was not sacred to the man she loved. +Her husband's words pierced her like a dagger. It was some minutes +before she answered him. He rose moodily, lit a cigar at the gas jet +and sat down again before she broke the silence. + +"Arthur," she said in a voice which was sad and full of the solemnity +of deep feeling, "have you no regard for truth?" + +"Truth!" retorted he. "To go back to Pilate's conundrum, 'What is +truth?' If you mean a strict and fantastic adherence to facts and to +stiff conventional rules, no, I haven't the slightest regard for truth. +If you mean the eternal verities as a man's own nature and the occasion +interpret them, yes, I have the highest." + +"But that is only a confusion of words, Arthur. What do you mean by +'eternal verities' if not adherence to facts? The eternal verities +cannot be whatever it pleases any one to say. Doesn't all human +intercourse depend upon faith in one another that we will adhere to +facts? Even if you do not look at the right and the wrong, there are +surely reasons enough why the truth should be sacred." + +Her husband whiffed his cigar, idly blowing a succession of graceful +rings. + +"You are quite a metaphysician. Did you have a pleasant dinner?" + +"But, Arthur," Edith persisted, ignoring his attempt to break away, +according to his habit, from a discussion which did not please him, +"but, Arthur, do you think it right for Mrs. Greyson--Mrs. Ashton, I +mean, to live so?" + +"Right? Oh, that is the same old question in another shape. Mr. Candish +will answer all those theological riddles; it is his business to. They +don't interest me." + +He threw away his half smoked cigar, dusted his coat sleeve of a stray +fleck of ash, settled his cravat before the glass, and humming a tune +walked towards his wife, his hands clasped behind him. + +"We do not agree, Edith," he said with cold deliberation, "and unless +you broaden your views, I am afraid we never shall. You are a dozen +decades behind the day, and are foolish enough to take all your church +teaches you in earnest. Religion should no more be taken without salt +than radishes. The church inculcates it to excuse its own existence, +but you certainly are reasonable enough to outgrow this old-fashioned +Puritanism." + +"Arthur," was her answer, "we do not agree, and if you wait for me to +come to your standards, I am afraid you are right in saying that we +never shall; and, indeed, I hope you are right. It makes me more +unhappy than you can think," she continued, her eyes swimming with +bitter tears, "that we are so far apart on what I must believe to be +vital points; on truths which I believe, Arthur, with my whole soul--as +you would, too, had you not carefully educated yourself into a doubt +which cannot make you better or happier." + +She had risen as she spoke, and stood facing him, her pure, pale face +confronting his with a look of pathos which touched him despite +himself. She came a step nearer, and put her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, Arthur!" she pleaded, "I love you, and how can I help mourning +that you wrong your better nature; that you resist the impulses of your +own best self?" + +He yielded to her caresses in silence. He remembered that Helen had +used this same phrase. + +"Women always appeal to one's best self," he commented inly, with a +mental shrug, "which means a man's inclination to do whatever a woman +asks of him." + +But he kissed his wife's lips, and said, tolerantly: + +"We will talk it over some other time, my dear. We are both tired +to-night. But you are right, I suppose, as you always are." + +And she loosened her arms from his neck, recognizing that he had put +her appeal aside and waived the whole matter. + + + + +XXIX. + +A NECESSARY EVIL. + Julius Caesar; ii.--2. + + +At the St. Filipe Club, somewhere in the small hours of that same +night, half-a-dozen members were lingering. One was at the piano, +recalling snatches from various composers, the air being clouded alike +with music and smoke wreaths. + +"I think you fellows are hard on Fenton," the musician protested, in +response to some remark of Ainsworth's. "I don't see what he's done to +make you all so down on him." + +"It isn't any thing that he has done," Tom Bently replied, "it is what +he has become. He has developed an entirely new side of his nature, and +a deucedly unpleasant one, too." + +"I always had a mental reservation on Fenton," remarked another. "He +was always insisting that his soul was his own, don't you know; and +when a man keeps that up I always conclude that he has his private +doubts on the subject; or if he hasn't, I have." + +"That's about the case with all the musical rowing we've been having +for the last year or two; every musician has been in a fever lest he +should be thought to be truckling to somebody." + +"What rubbish all this concert business is," remarked Tom. "In Boston a +concert interests a little _clique_ of people, and another bigger +_clique_ pretend to be interested. The nonsense that is talked +about music here is nauseating. The public doesn't really care any +thing about it. In Boston a concert is given in Music Hall; but in +Paris it is given in the whole city. It is an event there, not a +trifling incident." + +"What do you know about music?" retorted the player, clashing a furious +discord with his elbow as he turned towards the speaker. "I'll attend +to you presently. Now I want to know about Fenton. What has he done +that you are all blackguarding him?" + +"I think he's got a creed," said Ainsworth, scowling and smiling +together, according to his wont. "I hate to charge a man with any thing +so black, but I think Fenton's wife has made him take a creed, and a +pretty damned narrow one at that." + +"By Jove!" the musician observed, solemnly. "It's too bad. Fenton is a +mighty bright fellow, and no end obliging." + +"If it's only a creed," swore Bently, "what's all this fuss about? +Every body has a creed, hasn't he? A man's temperament is his creed." + +"It isn't his having a creed that I object to," remarked Grant Herman; +"it is the question of his sincerity that troubles me. If he has taken +up some collection of dogmas merely to please his wife--who seems a +very sweet, quiet body--that is of course against him; but if he +believes it, I don't see why we should object." + +"Believes it!" sniffed Ainsworth, in great contempt. "That is worse +than any thing I've said. I don't think Fenton is quite such an idiot +as that comes to. The idea of his believing in Puritanism! Oh, good +Lord!" + +"Puritanism," Bently threw in irrelevantly, and because he liked the +sound of it, "Puritanism is the preliminary rottenness of New England. +If he is struck with that by all means let him go; the further the +better." + +"Isn't it his night for the Pagans this month?" somebody inquired. + +"Yes," returned Bently, "but I took the liberty of going to him and +asking if he would let me take it this turn. I hope you fellows don't +mind." The talk thus flowed on in a desultory fashion amid ever +thickening clouds of tobacco smoke, and Grant Herman, sitting for the +most part quiet, had a whimsical idea in looking at his +half-extinguished cigar. Certain excellent cigars, his thoughts ran, +have a way of burning sluggishly about the middle, and without actually +going out, yet need to be relighted; and in the same way a man's life +goes on better for the kindling flame of a fresh attachment in middle +life. He fell into reverie, thinking of Helen and of Ninitta. He had +not seen the Italian since her flight, but from Mrs. Greyson he had +learned the story of the finding and recovery of the fugitive; and his +heart kindled with gratitude toward the woman who had prevented +consequences which he should have fruitlessly regretted. He became so +absorbed in his thoughts that only the entrance of Fred Rangely aroused +him. + +"Hallo, Rangely," the new comer was greeted, "where do you come from at +this time of night?" + +"Oh, from the office of the Daily Day-before-yesterday. I had an +article in, and I wanted to read the proof. I can stand any thing in +the world better than I can endure a compositor's blunders. Do any of +you know Dr. Ashton?" + +"I do," somebody answered. "What of him?" + +"Rather clever fellow, wasn't he?" + +"Why, yes; I think he is. He's rather odd sometimes. What about him?" + +"Dead." + +"Nonsense! I saw him myself not three hours ago, posting a letter in +the box opposite his office." + +"He is dead, though. Heart disease. They just got the news at the +_Advertiser_ office." + +"Where was he?" + +"In his office. The night porter of the building heard him fall against +the door. They say he must have died without a struggle." + + + + +XXX. + +HOW CHANCES MOCK. + II Henry IV.; in.--I. + + +Early on the following forenoon Helen took her way to the studio. She +was in unusually good spirits that day, for no especial reason that she +could have told, although indeed it is possible that the prospect of +meeting Grant Herman may have subtly contributed to the buoyancy of her +mood. + +She walked briskly through the bracing morning across the Common, her +mind full of bright fancies. A thin column of smoke arose from the +chimney of the lodge in the deer-park, rising straight in the clear +air, and cheerfully suggestive that some tiny family, not too large for +the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer +themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a +picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck +sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and +now and then glancing at his wife over his spectacles. + +In this joyous mood she came to the studio. A sudden thought darted +through her mind, with no apparent connection, of the talk of the night +previous, and for an instant her face clouded; but the exhilaration of +the morning and the reaction from the sad, overstrained state in which +her husband had left her, both helped her to throw off all mournful +thoughts. Ninitta had not arrived, and Mrs. Greyson busied herself +about the bas-relief, preparing for work. Suddenly the tap of Grant +Herman sounded upon her door. + +"Good morning," he said, entering in response to her invitation. "I +knew by your step that you were in good spirits, and it gave me so much +pleasure to think you were glad to be back, that I had to come up." + +"I am in good spirits," she returned. "It is such a glorious morning, +and Ninitta has kept me away from my work long enough for me to be very +glad to return to it." + +"What of Ninitta?" he asked, a shadow coming over his fine face. "She +is not still with you?" + +"No, but she is coming to pose this morning, though I hardly think she +is strong enough." + +The sculptor took in his hands a bit of clay and began nervously to +model it into various shapes. + +"Why did you take her home, Mrs. Greyson?" he asked after a moment's +silence. + +"Because she needed me," Helen answered. "And besides," she added +hesitatingly, "I thought you would like her to be under my care." + +"Did you?" he returned eagerly. "I was more grateful to you than you +would let me tell you! I--" + +He broke off abruptly as if determined to keep himself from any +dangerous demonstrativeness. + +"Come into my studio a moment," said he, throwing down the clay he +held. "I have something to show you." + +Helen followed willingly, glad to avoid the chance of their being +interrupted by the arrival of Ninitta, whose jealousy might easily be +aroused again. The sculptor led the way through a couple of chambers, +bringing her out at the top of the stairs leading down in the corner of +his studio. The morning sun shone in through the window far up in the +side wall, tinged to rich colors by the stained glass which Herman had +set there. The statues and casts looked in the light coming from above +them, as if they had just emerged from garments of shadows which yet +lay fallen about their feet. Helen uttered an exclamation of +admiration. + +"How charming the studio is in this light," she said. "It is like +looking down into a ghost world." + +"It is a ghost world," was the response. "It has long been haunted, but +I had not supposed that any eyes but my own saw the wraiths which dwell +here." + +The vibratory quality in his voice warned her not to answer. She felt +that she stood upon the brink of a significant interview, yet she +lacked the resolution to turn back. + +She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor +following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she +wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from +Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not +pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent passion, and, +indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if +unmixed with some desire to escape from him. + +All sorts of artistic rubbish had accumulated in the little gallery; +broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored +marble, and the thousand objects which make up the _debris_ of a +sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung +dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the +white-plaster goddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small +antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids +danced in immortal glee. + +"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar +before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?" + +"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle +shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?" + +"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated. + +"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar-- +it is a Hymeneal altar, they say--and said I would pour a libation upon +it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough." + +He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more +definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away +into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast +down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored +marble, resting upon the altar. + +"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to +leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed +up ever since until--until recently." + +However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was +yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the +sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to +what the question might lead, she asked: + +"And recently?" + +"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and +meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me." + +He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since +the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion +in an abstracted, impersonal way. + +"To remind you?" she in turn echoed. + +"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, +and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair." + +She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch +her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund +Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face. + +"But you removed it here." + +"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this +world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves--the +amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was +too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of +sight." + +She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned +and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing +eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again +and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to +speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words: + +"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see +mirrored in it." + +"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly. + +"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is +worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible." + +"But facts are such achromatic glasses." + +To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling +stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the +sculptor carefully removed. + +A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and +of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of +broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head +and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling +with the limpness of death. About the noble, lifeless head were bent +and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly +destroyed. + +Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the +pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her +eyes. + +"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure. + +Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the +pedestal, and she saw the words: + + "I strew these opiate flowers + Round thy restless pillow." + +Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a +delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the +face of the tall form beside her. + +"But he is dead," she murmured at length. + +"It seems so," he assented. + +She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white. + +"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice +thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love +him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton--Dr. +Ashton." + +"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton, +Teuton's friend?" + +"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to +heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have +told you, but I could not bear--Oh," she cried, breaking off her +sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!" + +"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you +been told?" + +"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?" + +"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?" + +"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?" + +"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was +possible to soften the blow. "He is dead." + +"Dead!" + +Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a +lifeless warrior. + +A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing +of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more +that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when +confronted by the irremediable--as if some blame must be taken for the +acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the +responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to +question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. +Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late +aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of +his suffering she might more strongly--A sudden thought pierced her +like a knife. + +"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly. + +"Of heart disease." + +So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were +truth. + +"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta." + +When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. +Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone +out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which +resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing +of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it +before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, +like the life of him whose last act had been their forming: + + "DEATH FOILS THE GODS." + + + + +XXXI. + +HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast +that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead." + +"Dead!" she exclaimed. + +Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an +unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a +subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it +made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost +immoral. + +"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph +containing the announcement of Dr, Ashton's sudden death from heart +disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow +and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now." + +"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?" + +"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably +make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon." + +"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her +eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so--so--flippantly." + +"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you +should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of +it,--to you, that is; of course I should not in public." + +"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean--" + +"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as +ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will +took poison, poor old fellow." + +She sank back in her chair, white and trembling. + +"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if +Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier." + +"Providence is noted for close observance of the _lex talionis_" +sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that +functionary, so it really ought to have passed him by. It would +certainly have been more dignified." + +"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his +last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are +all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own +lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all +a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr. +Ashton--Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I +cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!" + +She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, +and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with +intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her. +He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues +of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table. + +"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the +sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough +of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things +to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will +use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking +people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all +a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of +view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant +Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to +obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superstitions. +There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston--and +for aught I know a hundred thousand--who believe, or, if you like, +disbelieve, as I do." + +"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad +to think of." + +"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me +as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them." + +She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The +sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, +and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned +her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her +husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her +power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote +herself wholly to duty. + +The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further +conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton +had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received +later in the day. + +"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in +confidence." + +The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be +outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note: + + +DEAR ARTHUR:-- + +I've a strong presentiment--and although I disbelieve in presentiments, +mine generally come true--that in about half an hour my obituary will +be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me +to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit +dramatically, and you've often assured me that that is the chief thing +to consider in this connection. I've contemplated such a possibility +long enough to have my affairs in order, and doubtless your wife will +have a mass or two said for the repose of my soul. If you ever have a +chance to do Helen a good turn, you may regard it as a personal favor +to my ghost to do it. I've left you my Diaz as a sort of propitiatory +sop. + +Yours, of course, as ever, W. A. + + +"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" Edith sobbed, breaking down again. "It is awful! +It is just as he always talked. It is as light as if he were going out +to drive." + +"Naturally," was the response. "If you fancy Will would cry baby at +death, you knew him far from as well as I did. How strange it is to +think of his being in the past tense, poor fellow. It was clever of him +to leave me his Diaz; I always coveted it." + +In the face of this, what was there for Edith to say. She was simply +numbed to silence, and horror at her husband for the time deadened all +sense of the shock of Dr. Ashton's death. It was not until later in the +day that she was able to think of Helen. + +"But, Arthur," she said then, "Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Well; what of Mrs. Greyson?" + +"I am going to see her." + +"After your last night's indignation?" + +"I may have been wrong," Mrs. Fenton said bravely, "I may have been +hard. I realize every day how little I am able to judge for other +people. Perhaps I am narrow, as you say. At least now her husband is +dead I can show her my sympathy; and since I know more of him, it does +not seem so strange that she left him." + +"They left each other," he responded to these contradictory words. "But +what can you say? The consolations of religion will hardly be +available, and Helen never pretended to love Ashton?" + +His tone wounded her, but she answered without a change of countenance: + +"The death of the man who has been her husband can never be indifferent +to any true woman. I shall not force her to listen to any religion she +does not wish to hear." + + + + +XXXII. + +A SYMPATHY OF WOE. + Titus Andronicus; iii.--I. + + +"I am afraid you will think me intrusive," was Edith's hesitating +greeting to Helen, "but I could not help coming. I thought you might +feel lonely." + +Helen looked at her for a moment with wistful eyes and trembling lips: +then she crossed swiftly to where her friend stood and kissed her. And +never could these two be so wholly separated or estranged again as to +efface the memory of all the meaning that this caress conveyed. The +word which Edith had used had been most happily chosen. Her woman's +instinct divined the loneliness which overwhelmed the widow, and this +proof of her sympathy was the passport to Mrs. Greyson's heart. +Loneliness was the feeling of which Helen was most of all conscious. +The death of even an indifferent acquaintance often may seem to +desolate the earth from its simple irremediableness, and much more does +the removal of one near to us make the world appear half a void. + +Helen had been sitting alone before Edith came, reviewing her past and +drearily speculating of her future. She went over the days of her +wedded life; her innocent, introspective childhood, in which she had +dreamed and read, dwelling in a world apart; alone but for the ideal +creations of her books or her own quick fancy. She had married knowing +as little of life or of love, as when, a lonely child, she had spelled +out the tale of Prince Camaralzaman, and wondered what the divine +passion really was, or if indeed it had existence, outside of fairy +lore. + +The torch of death throws its glare backward, and its funeral light +showed many a past long since forgotten, but now revealed with new and +distorting vividness. Helen remembered the baby which had lived but +long enough to open its eyes with a smile that seemed of recognition, +and then faded back into the unknown whence it had come. A throb of +tenderness for the dead father moved the mother's heart as she thought +of her baby, so little time hers, and so long asleep under the +marguerites of a grave over the sea. She had suffered much from the +selfishness, the dominant self-will, the distorted views of life of Dr. +Ashton; and these things she even now could not forget; but, too, she +thought of him as the father of her child, her baby ever dear and +living in memory. + +She reflected, too, of the men she had known, and especially of Arthur +Fenton. Her nature had need of some one upon whom to expend its +treasures, and she realized that had she not felt in the artist a +certain insincerity, he might have awakened her love. He had been +appreciative, sympathetic, brilliant; and, too, he had called largely +upon her patience and forbearance, than which there is no surer way to +win a generous woman's affection. Yet always some note rang false to +her fine ear, and to the weakness of his nature she had never been +wholly blind, although not until his marriage had given him a certain +distance had she realized how deep and unsparing her knowledge of him +really was. + +Of Grant Herman she would not think. Thoughts of him arose again and +again in her mind, but she resolutely put them down. Some secret stir +of mingled pain and joy told her too well that the sculptor had +awakened the first love of her life. But at least with her husband, +however unloved, lying yet unburied, she would not dwell upon the +passion of another. + +She took Edith's hand, and the two women sat down side by side, +shedding tears together, rather from a sense of the general woe and +bitterness of life than for poignant grief for the present calamity. It +was not much they said at first. Neither was of the talkative order of +women, finding comfort in the mere utterance of words. They grew +together, sustained by giving and receiving tenderness, and each +tacitly asking and according forgiveness for unfriendly feelings in the +past. It is probable, too, that Edith, heavy with the disappointments +of her married life, found relief in being able to weep unrestrainedly, +even though the true source of her tears was not the obvious one. + +"I never loved him," Helen said of her husband. "After we separated we +became friends, rather because of a common past when we were both +strangers here, than from any fitness for each other. But he was once +my husband." + +Her friend pressed her hand in silence. + +"We had a child," Helen spoke again; "a little daughter. She only lived +one day. If she had not gone it might have been different. At least we +should have kept on together. My poor little baby!" + +Edith's eyes were full of tears, as she answered softly: + +"I hope you will let me say that I believe she is waiting for you some +where." + +"She must be," the mother responded quickly. "Whatever one doubts, one +must surely believe that. I could not lose her! She is mine, wherever +in the universe she may be." + +"Yes," was all Edith ventured in reply. "I am sure of it." + +They gave no heed to the fading day, but sat with clasped hands until +twilight had gathered, and it occurred at last to Mrs. Fenton that her +husband and dinner must be awaiting her. Helen had been telling of her +plans. + +"I shall go abroad," she said, "I want to study in Rome; I want to meet +great men; to be influenced by great works. I have been thinking of it +for a long time, and now it seems as if some ties that held me here are +broken, for we often obey claims which we yet deny. And besides," she +added, in a lower tone, "it is a flight from temptation. I am in danger +here." + +"In danger?" Edith asked wonderingly. + +"Only from myself," was the reply, "but that peril is sufficiently +imminent to make me afraid." + +Edith questioned no further, and to the true import of these words she +had no clue. She looked at her friend a moment inquiringly and +musingly, but as Helen did not continue, she rose to go. + +"I must get home now," she said, in a tone so tender that it seemed to +beg pardon for this abandonment. "Arthur is waiting for me and his +dinner; and if he doesn't get the latter at least, I won't answer for +the consequences. Mr. Calvin was with him when I came away." + +"Mr. Peter Calvin!" exclaimed the other, in some surprise. + +"Yes; he has bought one of Arthur's pictures, and he wants Arthur to +propose him at the St. Filipe Club, I believe." + +She spoke in perfect ignorance of the tumult her words excited in her +hearer's mind. Long after Edith was gone Helen sat looking out into the +darkening sky and thinking of Arthur Fenton. She had heard him talk too +often about Mr. Peter Calvin not to know what was implied by this new +friendship. Mr. Peter Calvin had been for years the head and front of +Boston Philistinism in art. He had been the patron of subservient +artists; the chairman of committees for the purchase of public statues; +an elegant writer upon such live and timely topics as _Plaster +Casting among the Egyptians, Notes upon Abyssinian Statues_, while +his monograph upon the question, _What Was the Original Cost of the +Venus de Milo?_ had by his flatterers been pronounced the +masterpiece of all known art essays for power and critical research. +His was a prominent name upon the covers of dilettante art journals; it +was he who effectually crushed young and too daringly independent +artists; who repressed impertinent originality; who headed the hosts of +conventionality against individuality or genius which held itself above +the established canons of antiquated tradition. He was the High Priest +of Boston conservatism; the presiding genius of Philistia; and until +the St. Filipe Club entered a protest against him by refusing to admit +him to membership, his power had scarcely received a blow. + +Tom Bently always insisted, with much profanity, that Mr. Peter Calvin +was a joke. + +"He writes with tremendous pomposity," Tom would say, "and he is in no +end of societies for molly-coddling art. He goes on, too, about the +plaster casts at that hospital for decrepit gods, the Art Museum, as if +his whole soul was in the plaster barrels of the Greeks. But bless your +soul! It's only his little joke. He doesn't really mean any thing by +it. He's only a stupendous joke himself." + +The Pagans, so far as they were to be regarded as an entity, +represented the protest of the artistic soul against shams. They stood +for sincerity above everything; for utter honesty in art, in life, in +manners and morals alike. To them Philistinism was the substitution of +convention for conviction. For the spirit of imitation, of blind +subservience to authority, the Pagans had no tolerance. While they held +themselves always open to conviction, they refused assent to any thing +which was offered them _ex cathedra_; they devoted themselves to +art with a passion of enthusiasm which was in itself the highest +expression of their principles. That they seemed often iconoclastic was +in reality less the result of their hatred of authority than the +prevalence of unreasoning, and therefore by their standards necessarily +insincere, adherence to established formulae. Dogmas they hated, not +because they were popularly received, but because although they had +been vital realities to their originators, they had become in time mere +lifeless forms, held in reverence by blind devotees long after the soul +had gone out of them. + +In art especially the Pagans demanded the most absolute surrender of +self to truth; and it should be added that they defined truth exactly +as Helen did, "that which one sincerely believes." They had no +condemnation too severe or sweeping for the artist who worshipped the +golden gods of Philistia by following popular conventions at the +expense of his honest art ideals. It is not impossible that they +carried this feeling to extremes sometimes, suspecting every thing +which was stamped with popular approval, but in the main at least their +standard was of the highest and their lives conformed well to it. +Measured by the creeds they rejected, they might often enough be found +wanting; tried by their own, there had never been an apostate among +them until the defection of Fenton. + +No one had been more bitter and outspoken in his condemnation of Mr. +Calvin and of what he represented than Arthur Fenton. Many a time he +had entertained Helen with stories of the presumption and the ignorance +of this man whom now he was receiving into his friendship, or, more +properly, in whose train of sycophants he had taken his place. + +Helen could not forgive him. Leaving dinner untasted, she sat with +burning cheeks in the darkness, mourning over the apostacy of the man +who had been her warmest friend. + + + + +XXXIII. + +A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +Dr. Ashton had been in his grave several weeks. Life had gone on much +as usual in Boston, with the bickerings of small souls the gaping +imitations of the mob, the carping of the self-appointed critics, and +the earnest endeavor of the honest and inspired workers, who leaven the +lump of modern civilization. + +Among the Pagans the nomination of Mr. Calvin to the St. Filipe Club by +Arthur Fenton had been received with a bitterness born of a feeling of +outraged confidence. They were to-night to meet in Tom Bently's studio, +and Fenton, who had no intention of being present, was yet keenly +conscious of what the talk there concerning him would be. He was glum +and moody at dinner, and Edith, who knew that this was Pagan night, +watched him wistfully. She hoped to win him away from friends and +acquaintances who seemed to her dangerous. Perfectly honest and ready +to lay down her life for her husband, she was yet urging him into paths +which he felt it to be degradation to walk, since they led him away +from sincerity. She had no means of knowing how his sudden championship +of Mr. Calvin was regarded. Her own relations to art had been those of +pretty amateurishness. She had been bred to believe in conventionality, +and the flavor of Bohemianism alarmed and repelled her. + +To-night she had put on her most becoming dress, she had ordered the +dinner with especial reference to her husband's tastes, and she exerted +herself to be as entertaining and attractive as lay in her power. She +even allowed herself the innocent ruse of delaying dinner a little, +that it might be later before Arthur could be ready to go out; and when +the answer to her timid hope that he was to be at home that evening, +was in the affirmative, her foolish, tender heart fluttered with +delighted hope that she was influencing him to shake off his irregular +associations. + +He was rather gloomy and silent all the evening, brooding of the +Pagans, from whose meetings he had never before been absent, and of +Helen, and what she would think. Edith tried all her arts and wiles to +make him forget the pleasure he was losing, and she partly succeeded, +since her attentions and endearments chimed in with the train of +thought by which he was endeavoring to prove to his own satisfaction +that he was the most virtuous of men, and that his swearing allegiance +to Philistinism, was a noble example of a transgressor willing to +confess and abjure his faults. He accepted his wife's attentions as +eminently fitting under the circumstances, and could he have forgotten +the Pagans and Helen, he might almost have been comfortable. More than +once in the old days he had found it hard to face Mrs. Greyson's clear +eyes, which saw so readily through shams, and now while he was able to +work himself into a defensive attitude towards all others of his old +friends, he felt a horrible humiliation in the consciousness that Helen +was sure to know of his course and to understand all its weakness. + +It occurred to him, too, that Helen had avoided him of late. Since the +death of Dr. Ashton, he had scarcely seen her, although she was often +with his wife. He knew from Edith that she was soon to go abroad, and +he wondered if the wish to escape him had any share in bringing her to +this decision. + +He tormented himself with speculations and memories until he could +endure it no longer. He must have comfort; his wounded self-sufficiency +craved the balm of approval, and although he was contemptuously +conscious of his own weakness, he turned to Edith to seek admiration +and praise. + +"So you are glad that I am not going to the Pagans to-night," he said +to her, as they sat before the fire, for the evening was damp and +chilly. + +"Very glad," she answered, leaving her chair to come and sit upon a low +hassock by his knee. "It was so good of you." + +She made a beautiful picture as she sat there, her long dress of +cardinal and stone gray silk gathered in waves about her, the +Elizabethan ruffle setting off her shapely head and slender neck, while +the soft, yellow old lace showed how clear was the tone of her skin. +Her pure, sweet face, with its appealing dark eyes, was turned upward +to her husband's, in an expression at once wistful and full of love. +Edith had always a highbred air, and to-night her attitude and +expression added the one charm of warmth and softness needed to make +her most lovely and moving. + +"You doubtless have some excellent reason," remarked Arthur smiling +down on her. + +"I am afraid of them; they are in arms against every thing that is +acknowledged to be good." + +"And yet they are the most honest men I ever knew," he returned, half +musing, and with a little pleased sense of his magnanimity in saying +this at a moment when they were probably abusing him. + +"I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps they may be honest, but I am sure it is +not good for you to be with them. They are so sure that their false +views of life are true." + +The little sting in the implication that he was not able to resist the +influence which had surrounded him was forgotten in the satisfactory +view which his wife took of the real value of the judgments of the +Pagans. He knew how little she understood them. With every premise upon +which her conclusions were founded he disagreed, yet he said to himself +that Edith was right; that the Pagans were quite too infallible about +every thing. They would have him grope along poor and unknown, he +argued with himself, simply for the sake of standing in the position of +chronic rebuke to established authorities; with only now and then a +chance to get a hearing upon what they assumed to be the true theory of +art. What they believed--ah! there after all was the weakness of the +whole. What ground had they for their belief? Did he himself really +believe any thing, or had he a right to assert in any matter a positive +conviction? And even if they or he asserted never so strongly, what +sort of a test of truth was that? After all the Philistines, the +Calvins, were as likely to be right as were a set of discontented if +not disappointed artists; men whose natures would never allow them to +be satisfied with any existing state of things, since it would +inevitably differ from their dreamy ideals. And it was certainly true +that the weight of authority and of numbers was with the Philistines. + +"Perhaps you are right, Edith," he said aloud. "I hope so at least, for +they are probably indignant enough with me." + +"With you? Why?" + +"Oh, they choose to think I went over to Philistia when I proposed Mr. +Calvin for the St. Filipe. I'm sure I don't see why I haven't a right +to propose whom I please." + +"But Mr. Calvin, Arthur," responded Edith, who regarded that gentleman +as one of the art gods of Boston. "I should think any body would be +proud to propose him. Why, he is one of the most distinguished men in +the city." + +Her husband did not answer for a moment. He looked into the fire and +watched his inner consciousness adapt itself to this view of the case, +which than himself no one had condemned more bitterly. Yet it was the +theory upon which it was necessary to rest did he expect to arrive at +any comfort in the course of supporting Mr. Calvin, which he had +already pursued so far that retreat was impossible. Yes, he assured +himself, he could even accept this. And why not? Did not common opinion +confirm it; and however much common opinion might be sneered at, it was +surely the voice of the common sense of the world. + +He looked down at his wife, who looked back smiling proudly. He +realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she +was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to +beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; +and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his +rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He +realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his +convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin and his +following. He recalled Helen's remark that what is called being honest +with one's self is often the subtlest form of hypocrisy, and he did not +spare himself a single pang of self-humiliation and contempt; and then, +when he was full to the throat with self-loathing, he let his sensuous, +self-loving nature devise excuse and soothe his wounded vanity. + +He looked into the fire with a smile of mingled bitterness and +complacency, half ashamed, half amused at the view which introspection +gave him. + +But whenever into his musings came the thought of Helen it rankled like +a poisoned barb. For he secretly believed that Helen loved him, and +although if a man humiliates himself in the eyes of the woman he loves +it is as bitter as death; yet to prove unworthy in the sight of her who +hopelessly loves him, contains a more subtly envenomed shaft, which +wounds that most sensitive spot in a sensuous man's nature--his vanity. + + + + +XXXIV. + +HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--I. + + +That evening Helen too sat at home, alone and full of resistless +thoughts. + +She had put the finishing touches to the _Flight of the Months_, +completing the work with scarcely less success than at first, and in +three days she was to sail for Europe. She had not allowed Dr. Ashton's +death to interrupt her work, the necessity of avoiding unpleasant +gossip which would be provoked by the disclosure of her relations with +the dead man, being sufficient reason why she should not change her +outward life. She quietly and rapidly completed the preparations for +departure, and already the feeling of severance from familiar scenes +cast its sadness over her. + +Leaving the studio to-day, she had gone down to speak with Herman, whom +she wished to take the responsibility of the firing of the bas-relief. +When she had finished this errand she turned to a figure in terra-cotta +whose freshness showed that it had but recently come from the kiln. + +"What is this?" she asked. "I have never seen it." + +"It is a Pasht," the sculptor returned. "I modeled it as a wedding +present for Arthur Fenton, but luckily I did not get it done in time." + +"Why 'luckily?'" + +"Because I should be sorry to have given him any thing so closely +connected with the Pagans, as things have turned out." + +Helen did not need to ask explanations of these words, although she did +not know how complete the breach between Fenton and his former friends +had become. + +"I am glad I am going away," she exclaimed with a sigh. + +"Going away?" he echoed, dropping his modeling tools. + +"Yes, I sail Saturday." + +She spoke with perfect composure, yet her glance was averted. She was +painfully conscious of having concealed the fact from him until this +moment. + +He came towards her, his eyes fixed upon her face. + +"What does this mean?" he demanded, almost fiercely. "Why do you go?" + +"I mean to study in Rome," she replied faintly. "I always told you that +I hoped to go some day." + +"But why do you go now? Why have you concealed it from me? Are you +afraid of my--of my love? If any one must go it should be I; I have no +right to drive you away." + +"You are not driving me away; I--it is better that I should go." + +"But why go now? Now you are free, and I have a right to claim you." + +"No," Helen said in a voice suddenly firm, but which yet showed her +inward agitation, "no; there is Ninitta. I have suffered too much +myself to be willing to try to come to happiness over any woman's +heart. It is better that I should go." + +"Ninitta!" Herman burst out. "She has no claim; she will not even care; +she--" + +"No," interrupted Helen, laying her hand upon his arm. "You cannot say +that; you know it is not true. You can see as well as I that Ninitta is +pining her life out over your neglect. We are not free to break her +heart when you yourself taught her to love." + +"I have never been unkind to her," he said, a little defiantly; "except +perhaps when she acted like a mad woman and broke your figures." + +"In love," returned Helen, smiling faintly, and glad to take refuge in +generalities, "sins of commission, as compared with the deadly sin of +omission, are mere venial offenses. It is not what you have done, but +what you have left undone." + +"But what can I do? I cannot force myself to love her?" + +"You have made her love you." + +"But I outgrew her centuries ago." + +"The price of growth is always to outgrow," replied Helen. + +She was struggling hard to keep the conversation away from dangerous +levels. She felt that she must seem heartless, but none the less she +went on bravely. + +"And after all what is outgrowing? It is a question of moods, of--" + +But her courage failed her. Her voice trembled, she turned away from +him and walked down the studio, stopping here and there as if to +examine a cast or a figure, invisible through the tears which welled up +in her eyes. The sculptor followed close behind her, until she put her +hand upon the great Oran rug which hung before the door. + +"Then you leave me," he broke out bitterly. "You make Ninitta a pretext +for escaping me. You might have told me that you did not care for me. I +would not have molested you." + +She turned to him suddenly, and he was startled by the whiteness of her +face, for she was pale to the very lips. + +"Do you think it is easy for me to go," she cried passionately, "to +give you up when I love you! You should help me, not make it harder. +Isn't it better to part now while we have nothing to regret than to +live with a wrong between us?" + +"But what wrong will be between us? Surely that boyish mistake need not +blight both our lives." + +"Can we help it?" she asked sadly. + +"We will help it! Are we merely puppets then, to be bandied about +helplessly? I told her I loved her; it is no longer true, and why is +the pledge that followed binding?" + +"It is not simply that you gave her your word," Helen returned, +struggling bravely with herself; "it is that you made her love you, and +that obligation you can never shake off. Oh, it is because you are too +noble to take a woman's love and then trample upon it, that I love +you--that you fill my heart." + +She poured out the words, her eyes blazing, her splendid form dilated, +her arms involuntarily extended towards him. He took her into his +embrace; not hastily, not wildly; but with a slow, irresistible movement +that had in it something of solemnity. He showered kisses upon her +hair, her forehead, her lips; he pressed her to his bosom as if he +would absorb her into himself. + +"My darling, my darling," he said, in a hoarse, fiery whisper, "I +cannot give you up! Think how lonely I am; how I love you!" + +She put up her face and kissed him with a long, clinging kiss; then she +freed herself from his arms. They stood face to face, her eyes +appealing, until his glance fell before hers. + +"Yes," he said in a voice so low that she bent forward to listen, "yes; +you must be right." + +"I am right," she responded sadly, "I have fought against it too much +not to be sure of that." + +"It is an odd way of proving my love for you to give you up," continued +Herman, with a new accent of bitterness in his voice. "Oh, the folly of +that boyish passion!" + +He strode away from her, as she leaned panting against a modeling +stand. The darkness was gathering so rapidly that when he turned back +his face came out of the gloom like a surprise. + +"My reward," he said, "must be that you love me; but that very reward +makes it harder to deserve it. I am sure that we would be wiser and +happier if we had no scruples to hamper us." + +"But we have," was her response; "to take your own words, we are not +mere puppets." + +Again he walked away from her, and for a few moments there was no sound +but that of his heavy footsteps, which seemed to make the silence more +solemn and penetrating. + +"I will do whatever you ask," he burst out suddenly. "I will even marry +her if you wish." + +"I ask nothing. It is not I but your convictions you should follow. I +am not even able to advise. Your own instincts are better and nobler +than any thing I can say to you." She stopped and choked back a sob. +"Oh, Grant, it is so hard!" she cried. + +She had never used that name before, and it so thrilled him with joy +and pain that he made an impulsive movement as if once more to take her +in his arms; but she lifted her hand with a gesture of negation. + +"I have been tempted as well as you," she continued, "I have said to +myself a thousand times that love justified all, and that these +theories were too fine spun. I could not keep the thought of you down +even when I first knew I was a widow, and I said over and over to +myself that now no one stood between us. I knew it was no use, but I +lay awake in the night and tried to prove to myself that Ninitta had no +claim,--but, oh! you are too much to me for me to be willing that you +should do what we both know is wrong and cruel. I can endure anything +better than that you should not always be my ideal; and I should hate +myself if I tempted you to wrong." + +"What I am," he said brokenly, moved most of all by the tears upon her +cheeks, "is nothing. You have beaten this temptation, not I; I would +have done any thing if you had encouraged me. I am a very ordinary +mortal, Helen, when one really knows my littleness." + +She smiled through her tears at him. + +"You shall not abuse yourself;" she replied. "I will not have it." + +There was not much further said between them. They remained together +until the dusk filled the studio, and it looked again like a +ghost-world as on the morning they two had come into it to see the dead +form modeled in red clay. Perhaps it was upon this remembrance that at +length Mrs. Greyson said: + +"Will you give me, before I go to Europe, that figure you showed me?" + +"I will give you any thing you ask," he answered; "I wish I might add +myself. Is it right," he added, with sudden fire, "for me to tie myself +to that model girl? Am I worth nothing better than that?" + +"You are worth the best woman on earth; but--oh I cannot argue it, but +I feel it; I am sure that it cannot be right to deny the claim which +you yourself gave her, Grant. I know by myself what it would be to lose +you." + +"But she is not the woman you are. Her feelings are those of an +ignorant peasant; she--" + +Helen laid her fingers lightly upon his lips. + +"No," she said, "don't go on. We have said it all once. You are trying +to out-argue your own convictions. I must go now. It is almost dark +already." + +She took a step or two towards the door and again laid her hand upon +the rug _portiere_. Then as by a common impulse they turned +towards each other, and once more she was locked in his embrace. + +And to-night, sitting alone in the dark, with dilated eyes, Helen felt +still the ecstasy of that moment, but murmured to herself: + +"It must not be again; I will not see him alone." + + + + +XXXV. + +PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP. + Othello; ii.--I. + + +Tom Bently's studio that night was a sight well worth seeing. + +Tom had two rooms in Studio Building, opening into each other by +folding doors, which were never known to be shut. The walls were hung +with old French tapestry, its rich, soft colors harmonizing exquisitely +with some dull-red velvet draperies from Venice. Bits of armor, some of +them very splendid, were disposed here and there, while a wealth of +_bric-a-brac_ enriched every nook and corner. In the doorway hung +an old altar-lamp of silver, with a cup of ruby glass, and from various +points depended other lamps of Moresque and antique shapes. A pair of +tall brass flambeau-stands, spoil of a Belgian cathedral sacked a +couple of centuries ago, upheld the heaviest candles Tom had been able +to find, which smoked and flared most picturesquely. + +Bently had traveled widely, every where picking up graceful and +artistic trifles--stuffs from Algiers; rugs from Persia and Turkey; +weapons from Tripoli and India and Tunis; musical instruments from +Egypt and Spain; antiques from Greece and Germany and Italy; and +pottery from every where. His studio was the envy of all his brother +artists, although he himself growled about it profanely, declaring that +he had so much rubbish about him that he could not work, yet +nevertheless declining to part with a single object. + +"I ought to clear the place out," he would say. "My pictures are +getting to look like advertisements of an old clo' shop, and if a man +doesn't change all his properties every year, the sapient critics say +he has become mannered. But I can't let them go; or rather they won't +let me go; they hang on like barnacles to an old hulk." + +The Pagans were six that night, Fenton's place being unfilled. The +delinquency of the absent artist was a good deal commented upon, yet +always as if an effort were made to keep the subject out of the +conversation. It came up again and again, and that not unnaturally, +since it was necessarily in every man's thoughts. + +"He's a mellifluous coward, now isn't he?" Bently remarked, with his +usual picturesque disregard of the conventional use of words. "The +average American couldn't have been more sneaking." + +"He was always afraid of the rough grain of life," Rangely responded. +"I always told him he was a born coward. He could never serve any cause +that wouldn't give him a uniform of broadcloth. But he was born for +something better than tagging after Calvin and his tribe, heaven +knows." + +"Bah!" went on Bently, "the bad taste of it! I could get over every +thing else, but the bad taste of proving a sneak, and giving up every +thing worth while." + +Somebody threw in a quotation from Browning's _Lost Leader_, and +then Grant Herman, trying to turn the conversation, took up Bently's +remark. + +"You're right, Tom," he said, "in your view of taste. Taste is +sublimated morality. It is the appreciation of the proportion and +fitness of all things in the universe, and of course it is above simple +morality, for that is founded upon a partial view. Taste is the +universal, where a system of morals is the local." + +"Can't you say that of art?" asked Rangely. "I should think art is the +universal, where religion is the provincial. A religion expresses the +needs and the aspirations of a race or a country, while art embodies +the aspirations and attributes of humanity." + +"Good!" Bently responded. "That is better than I should have said it, +but it's my belief, all the same. There are so few people who have +imagination enough even to understand what one means by saying that art +is the only thing in the world worth living for. Why, art is the +supreme expression of humanity; the apotheosis of all the best there is +in the race." + +"I don't see that," objected another. "Isn't religion the expression of +the longings of the soul, or whatever there is in us we call soul? I +can't say it well, but it seems to me you talk of religions, not +religion." + +"People seldom take the trouble to make that distinction. He who +attacks any of the religions is generally set down as striking at +religion itself." + +"Religion," returned Bently, "is the expression of fear, and nothing +else, if you sift it to the bottom. Knowledge kills so-called religion +as surely as it does those lower forms of belief which it is nowadays +the fashion to dub superstition. It is precisely the same feeling that +builds churches and that rhymes the country hag's charms. Fairies and +saints are double and twisted cousins, after all." + +"But religion," persisted the German, "is more than the expression of +fear; it is the embodiment of the aspirations of mankind; of the +instinct and desire for worship." + +"For worshipping something," amended Tom. "That is the same thing +differently phrased." + +"No, it isn't, either. To yearn for the higher is not to show that we +fear it, but that we long to grow like it. It is a confession of +incompleteness, of weakness, I grant you; but a thousand times no to +your calling it fear." + +"I confess to having been hasty, and modify my words so far as to say; +an expression of fear or weakness." + +"Is there then any shame in acknowledging weakness?" demanded the +German, pushing him as hard as he was able. "It certainly is honest." + +"Is there any shame to formulating fear?" retorted the other, deftly +evading him. + +"Then see how religion always appeals to art to help out its ultimate +expression," observed Rangely. + +"And how it has failed," added Bently, "when it has not had art to help +it. Puritanism tried to get on without art, and where is Puritanism? +You couldn't find a trace of it, if it hadn't come down on its +marrow-bones and begged art to build its churches, compose its music, +and regulate its rituals." + +"It is no more fair to say that," objected another Pagan, doggedly, +"than to say that art has gone to religion for help. Their accounts are +pretty evenly balanced." + +"Nonsense!" Rangely returned. "Art has never gained by being religious, +but by being art; but religion owes its hold largely to the help art +has given it." + +"And it has paid its debts by blackguarding art from every pulpit it +has builded for it." + +"As Fenton used to say," Ainsworth remarked, "art has been used as the +sugar-coating to the bitter pill of religion." + +"Oh, Fenton again," Bently exclaimed impatiently. "What did you bring +him up for? Who the devil would have thought Fenton would have turned +out so?" + +"I can tell you a piece of news," said Rangely. "The Election Committee +blackballed Calvin this afternoon." + +"Good!" cried they all; and some body added: "But Fenton said he'd +resign if Calvin wasn't elected." + +"Resign," echoed Rangely, "I guess he'll have to. He's been sent to +Coventry by half the Club now for that Graves affair." + +"The Graves affair?" some one queried. "What's that? What else has he +been doing? If a man starts to go to the devil, it does seem as if he +never could get ahead fast enough." + +"Miss Graves was going to buy one of Flackerman's pictures, and heaven +knows he needs the money; and Fenton, who has always pretended to be +Flack's friend, talked her into taking one of his instead; or rather he +got Calvin to go to her and do it. It was a stunning Flackerman, too; +and we were all rejoicing over his luck." + +"I would not be too ready to believe that story," Grant Herman said. "I +don't think Fenton's gone utterly to the bad all at once. He's living +expensively, they say, and possibly he let Calvin go to Miss Graves; +but I don't believe Arthur ever originated that sneaking scheme, and I +shouldn't be surprised if he never knew the rights of the case." + +"He's done what so many artists have been bullied into doing before," +Ainsworth observed. "If he has sold his birthright for a mess of +pottage, that is precisely what the patrons of art in this country +demand that every man shall do who comes here. I could tell you of a +dozen good fellows who've been spoiled in that way. I am far enough +outside to look on in an unbiased way; but they treat us architects in +the same fashion. Lots of the most rubbishy and conventional men we +have, started out to be fair and work from conviction; and they simply +had the choice between subservience and starvation, and cases of the +choice of death from starvation haven't been over plenty." + +"Oh, a man is known by the tailor he keeps," threw in Rangely; +"especially if he doesn't pay him." + +"It's all a game of cut-throat," Bently remarked philosophically; "art +and business alike." + +"I should hate to have my throat cut," observed the German Pagan in a +matter of fact tone; "it must let a dreadful draught into the system." + +"Oh, if you were beheaded," cried Rangely, "you'd turn into a capital +beer fountain, so your friends would find some consolation, even in +your loss." + +A diversion was caused here by the production of a splendid Japanese +punch-bowl, supported upon a teakwood stand. In it the host proceeded +to brew a potent and steaming mixture, whose fragrance must have +delighted the jocund gods of jollity and laughter. Tom was notorious +for being chronically in pecuniary difficulties, but he was always +adding to his collection of _bibelots_, and he never was known to +lack the means of concocting a glorious punch. + +"Ye gods!" exclaimed Ainsworth, "how good that smells. It almost +overcomes the general mustiness of Tom's den here, which usually has +all the odors of the Ghetto from which his things are dragged." + +"Casper is intoxicated already with the mere fumes," retorted Bently +good humoredly. "He's bound to fill a drunkard's grave sooner or +later." + +"No; I never shall," chuckled the other. "I'm altogether too good +natured to crowd the drunkard out." + +This sally was received with applause, and the glasses being filled, +the usual toasts to the goddess Pasht and to art were drank. + +"And to our seven," went on Herman, holding up his glass, and going on +with the formula they had, half unconsciously, fallen into the habit of +using, although they made no pretense of having a ritual. + +But he set his glass down untasted, suddenly remembering that their +ranks were broken, and the others followed his example. + +"The difference between religion and art," broke out Rangely, +hurriedly, to cover the awkward silence which followed, "is that +religion is a matter of tradition, of convention; it rests upon +authority, while art springs from inner conviction." + +"Sophistry," retorted the German, picking up the gauntlet; "there have +been a good many things said here to-night which sound well but won't +stand fire. It is precisely for following conventions in art that we +blame Fenton." + +"And that proves my point." + +"No, it doesn't; there's as much art that depends upon tradition as +there is religion." + +"No," replied Rangely. "In so far as art gets its inspiration from +fossil tradition it is lifeless and indeed ceases to be art. Religion +presupposes something exterior; while art is the outgrowth of the +individual's own mind, the best expression of his inner strength." + +"Religion," Herman threw in, "demands the existence of the unknown; art +only the existence of the inexpressible." + +"Yet art devotes itself to expression." + +"Yes, but more to suggesting. It phrases the possible so as to suggest +that which is above and beyond expression, yet toward which it helps +the emotions and the imagination. I think a man's soul a matter of very +little moment as compared to his imagination, and it is because art +ministers to the latter that I place it above religion." + +The talk was diverted here by some laughing remark which led on to a +train of gay badinage. The German tried to bring the conversation back +to serious levels, but in vain. + +"Oh, what fustian we've given ourselves up to to-night," laughed +Rangely. + +"It amuses me to hear you fellows discuss religion," Tom Bently +observed. "You wander round the subject as aimlessly as the young women +in the first half hour of a Harvard symphony concert." + +"Never you mind, Bently," rejoined Ainsworth. "You are sure of coming +out all right; the gods are bound to protect humbug, for on it depends +their own existence." + +They drifted in little groups to different parts of the studio, +admiring this or that bit of grace or beauty. Then the German, who was +a professional musician, tuned an old mandolin with which a Venetian +lover some star-lit night centuries ago, may have serenaded his loved +one from his gondola; and to its trembling accompaniment sang a quaint +chansonette, his Teutonic accent making havoc among its liquid Italian +syllables. Then Rangely possessed himself of a strange African +instrument, a crooked gourd, hollowed and strung with twisted tree +fibers, and joined to the notes of the mandolin, its weird, cicada-like +harshness. The duet moved Bently to clear a miscellaneous collection of +articles from the lid of a spinnet of the time of Louis XIV., upon +which be-powdered and be-patched dames, long forgotten, had strummed +pretty little tinkling tunes, while all about them other +marionette-like ladies and gallants played at little tinkling loves, as +pretty and as empty. + +The three instruments, so strangely matched, went off together in a +variety of music, imparting to every thing an uncanny, ghostly flavor, +as if these airs came in wild echoes from the shores of some dead past. + +"Oh, stop that," Herman cried, at last. "It's too melancholy. Your +instruments are all dead; and it's no use trying to get live music out +of them." + +For reply the German led off in a drearisome minor folk-tune, Rangely +and Bently improvising their parts with some skill, albeit not always +with perfect harmony. + +"Ye Gods!" cried Ainsworth, seizing the mandolin out of the player's +grasp. "Is this a Hottentot funeral? Here, Fred, give me that +diabolical gourd; it is haunted by the soul of a Caffre medicine man." + +"I say, fellows," spoke Rangely, as the din subsided, "I move we make +this a funeral, by breaking up the Pagans. Of course there is nothing +to hinder our meeting round at each other's places whenever we want to; +but we've either got to turn Fenton out or break up. I, for one, am +coward enough to prefer to break up." + +"So say I," said Herman. "When once a circle like this is broken, there +is an end of it. It can't be patched together." + +They looked at each other in silence a moment. To disband seemed like +an acknowledgment of defeat. Many another band of ardent souls has +known the feeling, with its dreary ache, although it oftener happens +that a circle of this kind disappears by the gradual dropping away of +its numbers one by one rather than that its members are brought face to +face with the necessity of owning that its existence had resulted in +failure. Whatever their faults and extravagances, whatever their errors +and intolerance, they were sincere, self sacrificing and ardent beyond +the men who made up the world about them; a group of eager lovers of +truth and art who had been drawn together by mutual aims and +enthusiasms. Their fierceness had been in defense of honesty and +sincerity, their disinterestedness was attested by the fact that any +one of them might have made his peace with Philistia and been rewarded +for his complaisance had he so chosen. Doubtless they had their faults +and foibles, yet their comradeship, in its essential purport had been +true and noble. + +They in no wise abandoned their aims in agreeing with the proposition +to disband, but about their fellowship had been a certain un-phrased +tenderness, at which, if put in word, any one of them might have +scoffed, yet which nevertheless they all felt strongly in their secret +hearts, and all were conscious that after this defection of Fenton, the +circle could never be perfect again. They did not discuss the matter +now, but in the interval of silence each acknowledged to himself that +to disband was best; and briefly each gave his assent; all soberly, +some almost gruffly. + +And so it came about that the goddess Pasht lost her last band of +followers, and the Pagans assembled no more forever. + + + + +XXXVI. + +AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND. + Merchant of Venice; v.--2. + + +"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the +background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes +differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you'd see." + +"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage," +Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not +logical." + +"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still +say yes." + +It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come +to Fenton's studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have +that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not +choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife. + +"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature's protest against +civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on +her own ground, am I not?" + +"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote +Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what +is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be +honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must +be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever +acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have." + +"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too +self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to +win society? Society is ready enough to take them in." + +"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, +'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage +seems already to have sucked the life out of you." + +"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot +make me angry." + +"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is +your fault." + +"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, +"oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself." + +He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the +building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen. +He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of +the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite. + +"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence. +"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why +you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well +connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, +Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling +the Egyptians." + +"But that was in departing from their country." + +"We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only +disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect +you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself. +You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I +am able." + +She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives +seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his +marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her +impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing. + +"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not +her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?" + +"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look +coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?" + +"You are speaking of your wife!" + +"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or +of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long +ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do +precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime? +Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of +being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of +whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example." + +"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple +question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of +hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush +mark of your canvas there!" + +For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat +upright in his cushions and faced her. + +"Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You +cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I +asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with +the Philistines!" + +He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off +some disgusting touch. + +"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, +"far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I +prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever +else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would +like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes +me beautifully." + +He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait +contemptuously. + +"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming +thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. +The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving +them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't +enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of +standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by +enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, +she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while +they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help +her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with +the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not +wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most +part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial +good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you +choose." + +He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose +as he finished. + +"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own +judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have +ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race." + +"But I acknowledge my faults." + +"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment +is not reparation, though many try to make it so." + +She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand +upon the latch. + +"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet +again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can." + +"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at +him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you." + +"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil. +I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is +true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as +through her sincerity." + +"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen. + +"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed +my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word 'Pardon.'" + +"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than +either would be a blank! Let me pass!" + + + + +XXXVII. + +FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + Richard II.; ii.--2. + + +The outward bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle +attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people +who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying +little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, +while her glance was cast to the ground, save when she raised her head +in speaking. + +The Italian from time to time took Helen's hand in hers and kissed it +fondly. + +"I pray the Madonna for you every night," she whispered in her native +tongue, "that she will give you a safe voyage." + +The sculptor watched all that went on about them, waiting with some +inward impatience for the moment when the duty of escorting Mrs. +Greyson on board would give him an opportunity of being a moment alone +with her. + +"We shall miss you much," he said, feeling that any thing would be +better than the silence which hedged them in amid the noisy bustle of +the throng. "We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?" + +He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's +face, and for her alone he had ears. + +"Yes," he said again with nervous platitude, when once more they had +lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife +nor myself has any friend to take your place." + +Some faint accent in the tone in which he referred to his three hours' +bride made the widow look up suddenly. To the question in her eyes his +glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame +her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be +miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall +and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as time went on? + +But all these questionings Helen had answered with stern bravery during +the sad wakeful nights and lonely days just past. She had first +convinced herself that it was right that Herman should redeem his +old-time pledge to Ninitta, and after that she forced herself to the +bitterer task of realizing that when time had obliterated somewhat the +clearness of her own image in the sculptor's heart, something of his +old affection for the Italian might be rekindled in his generous, warm +nature, always tenderly chivalrous towards woman, and sure to prove +doubly so to one dependent upon him. It was hard, but Helen +unflinchingly analyzed the nature of her lover, and while she could not +believe that he would ever feel for his wife the grand passion which +she had herself inspired in his breast, she saw for him a tranquil +future in which his wife's devotion would be met with enduring, even +with increasing affection, which if not love, would be so like it that +Ninitta, at least, would never distinguish; and in which her husband +would find comfort and warmth, if not fire and aspiration. + +She had a harder struggle when the thought came to her, "Have I not led +him into the one thing he most dreads and despises, an act of +insincerity? Can a loveless marriage be honest?" But she answered her +doubting heart; "No; he has told Ninitta that he does not love her as +of old, and he is not deceiving her. It is my own selfishness that puts +this thought into my mind." It may be that Helen was wrong, for the +influence of her Puritan training had left a strong impress upon her +moral sense in a regard for the sanctity of a pledge, especially to its +spirit rather than its letter, so deep as to be almost morbid; yet at +least she was self sacrificing and never more truly consistent than in +the seeming inconsistency of urging this marriage. + +"Come," was Herman's word, almost a command, when the crowd upon the +steamer's deck began definitely to separate into those who were to go +and those who remained. "You must go aboard. Ninitta, stand just where +you are until I come back. I will be gone only an instant." + +Helen turned and kissed Ninitta, a sharp pang stabbing her very soul, +as the thought came to her: "He will love her; she is his wife, and he +will learn to love her!" Then she put her arm upon Herman's in silence. + +She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her +excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the +steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on +deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where +the two were alone. + +"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it +is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide." + +"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith +between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no +matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it +must be right." + +He bent forward to kiss her. + +"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I +have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now +we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave +you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to +love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to +each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not +forget me." + +"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered +he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his +cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future." + +She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer +sounded out sharply upon the air. + +"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, +even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she +added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, +though I must not share it." + +He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but +her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife +awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his. + +"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, +lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and +afraid without you." + +He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he +withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning +over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down +the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by +their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight. + +FINIS. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pagans, by Arlo Bates + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + +This file should be named 7pagn10.txt or 7pagn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7pagn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7pagn10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes +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: The Pagans + +Author: Arlo Bates + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8671] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 31, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE PAGANS + +By + +Arlo Bates + + + +The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. + _All's Well That Ends Well_; iv--3 + + + + +DEDICATION. + + +To those who would be Pagans, did any such organization +exist, I take pleasure in offering this attempt to picture a phase +of life which they know. + + + + She answered, "cast thy rosary on the ground; bind on thy + shoulder the thread of paganism; throw stones at the glass of + piety; and quaff from a full goblet." + _Persian Religious Hymn._ + + + +CONTENTS. + +I. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE +II. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT +III. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT +IV. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT +V. THE BITTER PAST +VI. A BOND OF AIR +VII. IN WAY OF TASTE +VIII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE +IX. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE +X. O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT +XI. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED +XII. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED +XIII. THE ASSAY OF ART +XIV. THIS IS NOT A BOON +XV. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL +XVI. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH +XVII. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES +XVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE +XIX. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS +XX. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED +XXI. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH +XXII. UPON A CHURCH-BENCH +XXIII. HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT, +XXIV. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING, +XXV. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME, +XXVI. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION, +XXVII. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE, +XXVIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE, +XXIX. A NECESSARY EVIL, +XXX. HOW CHANCES MOCK, +XXXI. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY, +XXXII. A SYMPATHY OF WOE, +XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN, +XXXIV. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY, +XXXV. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP, +XXXVI. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND, +XXXVII. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + + + + +PAGANS + + +I. + +SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE. + Measure for Measure, v--i. + + +A fine, drizzling rain was striking against the windows of a cosy third +floor sitting-room, obscuring what in pleasant weather was a fine +distant view of the Charles river. The apartment was evidently that of +a woman, as numerous details of arrangement and articles of feminine +use suggested; and quite as evidently it was the home of a person of +taste and refinement, and of one, too, who had traveled. + +Arthur Fenton, a slender young artist, with elegant figure and deep set +eyes, was lounging in an easy chair in an attitude well calculated to +show to advantage his graceful outlines. For occupation he was turning +over a portfolio of sketches, whose authorship was indicated by the +attitude of the lady seated near by. + +She was a woman of commanding presence, with full lips, whose +expression was contradicted by the almost haughty carriage of her fine +head and the keen glance of her eye, which indicated too much character +for the mere pleasure-seeker. Her hair was of a rich chestnut, and she +wore a dress of steel gray cashmere, relieved at the throat by a knot +of pale orange, which harmonized admirably with her clear complexion. +She watched her companion as if secretly anxious for his good opinion +of her drawings, yet too proud to betray any feeling in the matter. He, +for his part, turned them over with seeming listlessness, breaking out +now and then with some abrupt remark. + +"Yes," he said suddenly, after a ten minutes' silence, "I'm going to be +married at once. It will be 'a marriage in the bush,' as the Suabians +call an impecunious match, since neither of us has any money; and I, at +least, haven't so great a superfluity of brains that in this +intelligent age of the world I am ever likely to make much by selling +myself; and that is the only way any body gets any money nowadays." + +"I hardly think you'd be willing to sell," his companion answered, "no +matter how good the market." + +"There's where you are wrong," he answered, looking up with a sudden +frown, "the worst thing about me is that with sufficient inducement--or +even merely from the temptation of an especially good opportunity--I +should sell myself body and soul to the Philistines." + +"One would hardly fancy it, from the way you talk of Peter Calvin and +his followers." + +"Oh, as to that," retorted the artist, "don't you see that judicious +opposition increases my market value when I am ready to sell? If I +could only be sufficiently prominent in my antagonism, I might +absolutely fix my own price." + +The lady made no answer, but regarded him more intently than ever. + +"That's a good thing," he broke out again, holding up a drawing. "Why +don't you do that in marble, or better still, in bronze?" + +"I am putting it up in clay," she answered. "I thought I had shown it +to you. It is to be fired as my first experiment in a big piece of +terra-cotta. That is the first sketch; I think I have improved upon +it." + +It was the study for a bas-relief representing the months, twelve +characteristic figures running forward with the utmost speed. Gifts +dropped from their hands as they ran; from the fingers of June fell +flowers, from those of August and September ripened fruits, upon which +November and December trampled ruthlessly. January, in his haste, +overturned an altar against which February stumbles. + +"It is melancholy enough," Fenton observed, regarding it closely. "How +melancholy every thing is now-a-days?" + +"To a man about to be married?" she asked, with a fine smile. + +"Oh, always to me. The fact that I am going to be married does not +prevent my still being myself." + +"Unfortunately not," she returned, with a faint suspicion of sarcasm in +her tone. "You pique yourself upon being somber." + +"I dare say," answered he, a trifle petulantly. "Pain has become a +habit with me; discontent is about the only luxury I can afford, heaven +knows!" + +"Unless it is gorgeous cravats." + +"Oh, that," Fenton said, putting his hand to the blue and gold tie at +his throat. "I'm trying to furbish up my old body and decrepit heart +against my nuptials, so I invested fifty cents in this tie." + +"You couldn't have done it cheaper," remarked she; "though, perhaps," +she added dryly, "it is all the rejuvenation is worth." + +Fenton smiled grimly and again applied himself to the examination of +the drawings, while the other looked out at the rain. + +"Boston has more climate, and that far worse," she remarked, "than any +other known locality." + +"Does that mean that you are going to Herman's this afternoon?" asked +Fenton. + +"I should have gone this morning if you had not insisted upon my +wasting my time simply because you had determined to waste yours." + +Fenton laughed. + +"You are frank to a guest," he said. "I wished to be congratulated on +my marriage." + +"I shall not congratulate you," she answered. "You are spoiled. The +women have petted you too much." + +"According to the old fairy tale all goes well with the man of whom the +women are fond." + +"I remember," she said. "I always pitied their wives." + +"I shall treat Edith well." + +"You are too good-natured not to, I suppose; especially when you look +forward to your marriage with such rapture." + +"But, Helen, have I ever pretended to believe in marriage? Marriage is +a crime! Think of the wretched folly of those who talk of the holiness +of love's being protected by the sanctities of marriage. If love is +holy, let it have way; if it is not, all the sacraments priests can +devise cannot sanctify it." + +"Then why, Arthur, do you marry at all?" + +"Because marriage is a necessary evil as society is at present +constituted." + +"But," Helen said slowly, "you who pretend to have so little regard for +society--" + +"Ah, there it is," he interrupted. "Man is gregarious by instinct; he +must do as his fellows do. He must submit to the most absurd +_convenances_ of his fellowmen, as one sheep jumps where another +did though the bar be taken away. If he were strong enough to stand +alone he might take conventions by the throat and be a god!" + +His outburst was too vehement and sudden not to come from some +underlying current of deep feeling, rather than from the present +conversation. He had risen while speaking, his head thrown back, his +eyes sparkling. His companion regarded him with admiration, not +unmixed, however, with amusement. + +"And you," she said, "choose to call yourself a man without +enthusiasms." + +"Yes," replied he, smiling and regaining his seat, "I am a man without +enthusiasms." + +"That is the cleverest thing you ever said," Helen continued, musingly. +"And so we understand you intend to be ruled by conventionality and +marry?" + +"Precisely; it would be unjust to Edith to even talk to her of my +views." + +"I should hope so!" exclaimed his hostess. "But you will at least have +her to yourself, and that pays for every thing." + +"Oh, _peutêtre!_" Fenton returned dubiously, perfectly well aware +that the remark had been made to elicit comment, yet too fond of +talking to resist temptation and leave it unanswered, "_peutêtre_, +though I never believed in the desert-island theory. It is more in your +line; you still have faith in it." + +"Oh, I do," she rejoined quickly; "and so would you if you were in +love. You'd be content to be on a rock in the mid ocean if she were +there." + +"Love on a desert island," returned the young man, smiling +significantly; "Oh, _le premier jour, c'est bon; le deuxième jour, ce +n'est pas si bon; le troisième jour--mon Dieu, mais comment on +s'ennuie!_" + +"No, no, no," Helen broke in impetuously. "Good, always! Always, +always, or never!" + +Fenton threw back his head and burst into a shout of laughter. + + "'Twere errant folly to presume, + Love's flame could burn and not consume," + +he sang, going off again into peals of laughter. "Good by, _mon +amie_; oh, _mais comment on s'en--_" + +"Stop," interrupted she. "I'll have no more blasphemy." + +"Good-by, then," he said, picking up his hat. + +"You may as well stay to lunch," his hostess said rising. + +"No," returned he. "I must go and write to Edith." + +And off he went, humming: + + "'Twere errant folly to presume + Love's flame could burn and not consume." + + + + +II. + +THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. + Measure for Measure; iv--i. + +As many of the Boston clocks as ever permitted themselves so far to +break through their constitutional reserve as to speak above a whisper, +had announced in varying tones that it was midnight, yet the group of +men seated in easy attitudes before the fire in one of the +sitting-rooms of the St. Filipe Club showed no signs of breaking up. +Indeed, the room was so pleasant and warm, with its artistically +combined colors, its good pictures and glowing grates, and the storm +outside raged so savagely, beating its wind and sleet against the +windows, that a reluctance to issue from the clubhouse door was only +natural, and there would be little room for surprise should the men +conclude to remain where they were until daylight. + +The conversation, carried on amid clouds of fragrant tobacco smoke and +with potations, not excessive but comfortably frequent, was quiet and +unflagging, possessing, for the most part, that mellow quality which is +seldom attained before the small hours and the third cigar. + +"Yes, virtue has to be its own reward," Tom Bently was saying lightly, +"for, don't you see, the people who practice it are too narrow-minded +to appreciate any thing else." + +"And that makes it the most poorly paid of all the professions," was +the retort of Fred Rangely, who was lounging in a big easy chair; +"except literature, that is. Even sin is said to get death for its +wage, and that is something." + +"Virtue may be an inestimable prize for any thing you newspaper men can +tell. It is not a commodity you are used to handling." + +"Literature has little to do with virtue, it is true," was the +response. "Who would read a novel about virtuous people, for instance? +I'd as soon study the catechism." + +"How art has to occupy itself with iniquity," Fenton observed with a +philosophical puff of his cigar. "Or what people call iniquity; though +a truer definition would be nature." + +"Painting occupies itself with iniquity in its models," Rangely said +lazily. "I heard to-day--" + +"No scandals," interrupted Grant Herman, good humoredly. "You are going +to tell the story about Flackerman, I know." + +The speaker was the most noticeable man in the group. Tom Bently, an +artist, was a tall, swarthy fellow with thin black beard, stubble-like +hair, and a gypsyish look. Next came Fred Rangely, an author of some +reputation, of whom his friends expected great things, rather short in +stature, thick-set, and with a good-tempered, intelligent face. +Fenton's appearance has already been touched upon; he was of elegant +figure, with a face intellectual, high-bred, but marred by a suspicion +of superciliousness. Amid these friends, Herman gained something by +contrast with each and naturally became the center of the group. This +prominence was partly due to his figure, of large mold, finely formed +and firmly knit, carrying always an air of restful strength and +composure which made itself felt in whatever company he found himself. +His head, although not out of proportion with his fine shoulders and +trunk, was somewhat massive, a fact which was emphasized a little by +the profusion of his locks, now plentifully sprinkled with gray. His +face was indicative of much character, the lips firm and full, the eyes +large and dark, now serious under their heavy brows and now twinkling +with contagious merriment. + +"It isn't every model you can talk scandal about," chuckled Bently, in +reply to Herman's remark. "We had a devilishly pretty fuss in Nick +Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the new +model." + +"What new model?" inquired Fenton, arranging himself into an effective +pose before the fire. + +"Do you remember the picture of an Italian girl that Tom Demming sent +to the Academy exhibition two years ago? A homely face with lots of +character in it, and a splendid pose?" + +"You mean the one he called _Marietta?_ It was well done, if I +remember." + +"Oh, stunningly. That's the girl. She's just landed, and Demming gave +her letters to me. She's a staving good model!" + +"But she isn't pretty." + +"No; but she is suggestive. She has one of those faces that you can +make all sorts of things out of. Rollins made a sketch of her head that +is stunning; a lovely thing; and it looked like her too. Then her +figure is perfect, and what is more, she knows how to pose. She meets +an idea half way, you know, and hits the expression wonderfully. She +has given me points for my picture every time she has been at the +studio." + +"Is her name Ninitta?" Grant Herman asked. + +"Yes; do you know any thing about her?" + +"I think I've seen her in Rome. But what is she doing on this side of +the water?" + +To Arthur Fenton's keen perception there seemed more feeling in the +tone than an inquiry into the affairs of a stranger would be likely to +evoke, but he gave the matter no especial thought. + +"Yes," he echoed lightly, "what is she here for? There is no art in +this country. New York is the home of barbarism and Boston of +Philistinism; while Cincinnati is a chromo imitation of both. She'd +better have staid abroad." + +"Your remark is true, Arthur," Bently laughed, "if it isn't very +relevant. What people in this country want isn't art at all, but what +some Great Panjandrum or other abroad has labeled art. They don't know +what is good." + +"That is so true," was the retort, "that I almost wonder they don't buy +your pictures, Tom." + +"But why does the girl come to America?" persisted Herman, with a faint +trace of irritation in his tone. "She could do far better at home." + +"Oh, Demming wrote that she was bound to come. You can never tell what +ails a woman anyhow. Probably she has a lover over here somewhere." + +Herman made no reply save by an involuntary lowering of his heavy +brows, and Rangely brought the conversation back to its starting-point +by asking: + +"But what about Nick Featherstone?" + +"Oh, Nick? Well, Nick tried to kiss her yesterday, and she offered to +stab him with some sort of a devilish dagger arrangement she carries +about like an opera heroine." + +"Featherstone is always a strong temptation to an honest man's boot," +growled Herman out of his beard, as he sat with his head sunk upon his +breast, staring into the fire. + +"They had a scene that wouldn't have done discredit to a first-class +opera-bouffe company," Bently went on, laughing at the remembrance. + +"Nick was fool enough to hollo to somebody in the next room, and the +result was that we all came trooping in like a chorus. It was absurd +enough." + +And he laughed afresh. + +"But the girl?" persisted Grant Herman, not removing his gaze from the +fire. "How did she take it?" + +"Oh, she was as calm and cold as you please. She gathered herself +together and went off without any fuss." + +"I wish when you are done with her, you'd send her round to me," Herman +rejoined. "I want a model for a figure, and if I remember her, she'll +do capitally." + +He rose as he spoke, with the air of a man who intends going home. + +"By the way," Fenton said to him, "isn't the Pagan night next week? +Don't you have it this month?" + +"Yes; you'll get your invitations sometime or other. Good night all." + +"Oh, don't break good company," Rangely remonstrated. "I have half a +bottle here, and I do hate an alcoholic soliloquy." + +But the movement for departure was general, and in a few moments more +the members of the company were wending their individual ways homeward +through the pelting rain. + + + + +III. + +THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT. + Othello; iv.--i. + + +The sun shone brightly in at the windows of a little bare studio next +morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the +night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, +turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over her modeling. + +She seemed to find in her work a joy which accorded well with the +bright day. Pinned to the wall was an improved sketch of the bas-relief +whose design had attracted Fenton's notice in her portfolio, while +before the artist stood a copy in clay, upon which she was working with +those mysterious touches which to the uninitiated are mere meaningless +dabs, yet under which the figures were growing into sightliness and +beauty. + +Suddenly her song was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, +followed by a tap upon her door. + +"Come," she called; and Grant Herman entered in response to the +invitation. + +He carried in his arms a large vase, about whose sides green and golden +dragons coiled themselves in fantastic relief. + +"Your vase came from the kiln," he said, "and I knew you would want to +see it at once. It is the most successful firing they have done here." + +"Oh, I am so glad," she returned, laying down her modeling tools, and +approaching him eagerly. "I was sure there wouldn't be a head or a tail +left by the time the poor monsters came out of the fiery furnace. What +a splendid color that back is! And that golden fin is gorgeous." + +"Yes, Mrs. Greyson," Herman said, "you have produced a veritable +dragon's brood this time. I can almost hear them hiss." + +"Do you know," she responded, smoothing the glittering shapes with half +chary touches. "I should not be wholly willing to have the vase in my +room at night. They might, you know, come to life and go gliding about +in a ghastly way." + +"I always wondered," the sculptor observed, "that Eve had the courage +to talk with the serpent. Do you suppose she squealed when she saw +him?" + +"Oh, no, she probably divined that mischief was brewing, and that +contented her." + +Herman had set the vase where all its gorgeous hues were brought out by +the sun, which sparkled and danced upon every spine and scale of the +writhing monsters. He walked away from it to observe the effect at a +greater distance. + +"There is no pleasure like that of creating," he said. "Man is a god +when he can look on his work and pronounce it good." + +"Which is seldom," she returned, "unless in the one instant after its +completion when we still see what we intended rather than what we have +made." + +"It is fortunate our work cannot rise up to reproach us for the wide +difference between our intents and our performances. Fancy one of my +statues taking me to task because it hasn't the glory it had in my +brain." + +"It is on that account," Mrs. Greyson said smiling, "that I fancy +Galatea must have been most uncomfortable to live with. Whenever +Pygmalion found fault, she had always the retort ready: 'At least I am +exactly what you chose to make me.' Poor Pygmalion!" + +"It was no more true than in the case of every man that marries; we all +bow down to ideals, I suppose. Except," he added with a little +hesitation, "myself, of course." + +The words were somewhat awkward in the hesitating accent which gave +them a suggestiveness at which the faintest of flushes mounted to her +cheek. She bent her observations more closely on the vase. + +"It is fired so much better than the last miserable failure," observed +she, going to a shelf and reaching after a dusty vase, massive and +fantastic, which had been ruined in the kiln. + +"Let me help you," Herman said. + +But she had already loosened the vase, which proved heavier than she +expected, and it was only by darting forward, and throwing his arms +about her, that the sculptor was enabled to save her from a severe +blow. The vase fell crashing to the floor, breaking into heavy shards, +rattling the windows and the casts upon the wall by the concussion. + +An exclamation escaped him. He had drawn Mrs. Greyson backward, and for +a brief instant, held her in his strong clasp. It was an accident which +to mere acquaintances might mean nothing; to lovers, every thing. +Herman was for a moment pale with the fear that Helen might be injured; +then the hot blood surged into his cheeks as he released his hold and +stepped back, He bent over the fragments of the vase that she might not +see his face, and by so doing, as he reflected afterward, he failed to +perceive what was her expression. He straightened himself with an +impetuous movement, and came a step nearer. + +"How can you be so careless?" he demanded, almost with irritation. "It +might have killed you." + +"I did not remember that it was so heavy," she returned, a little pale +and panting. "Do you think I was trying to pull it on my head? I am +very much obliged, though. You have saved me a heavy blow at least. +There is not much left of that unlucky vase. It was always +ill-starred." + +"All's well that ends well," returned the sculptor, sufficiently +recovering his self-control to speak lightly; "only don't run such a +risk another time." + +"Oh, I assure you," she replied, "I do not make my vases either to +break my head or to be broken themselves. I shall take better care of +this one, you may be confident." + +"I was more concerned for yourself than for the vase." + +"For myself it really does not so much matter." + +"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so." + +"Oh,--my friends!" + +Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom or +exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of +interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares +of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant +and perplexing. + +She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the +modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand reflections +danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in the +sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of +jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as +the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling +spines. + +"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed, +twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother +Eve, do you think?" + +"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd +brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the +occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of +it." + +A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand +abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her with +a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The +movement touched her companion as no words could have done. + +"I beg your pardon," he muttered. + +And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly +and quitted the room. + + + + +IV. + +AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT. + Henry VIII.; i.--3. + + +"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur, +that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to +at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the +unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the +wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw +it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago." + +"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never +be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; +and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far +off that I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is +imminent at all." + +"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a +pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is +advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom." + +"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it +altogether until it comes." + +"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll +find when the day of doom swoops down on you." + +They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery +of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe +by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a +little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the +errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being +accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this +might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before their +marriage. + +She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet +representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton +sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, +then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her. + +"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he +remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an +irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out +the catch-penny hand of a beggar." + +"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that +is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real goddess has her +temples here." + +"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the +way you mean." + +A shadow passed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him. + +"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly +about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at +first, but you--" + +"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the +conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma +petite_. Don't mind it." + +"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter +talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--" + +She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because +her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might +offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly +avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new +channel. + +"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are +only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of +questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised +Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here +twice that time already." + +He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and +down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her +face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real +importance to her. + +"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they +descended the wide staircase. + +She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way +collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a +somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed +deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm, +impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with +lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was +placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more +than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the +shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless +eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still +keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer. + +Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have +stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a +way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed. + +"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How +much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give +us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she +would but condescend to speak." + +"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling. + +"But Pasht belies her sex by not being a communicative party," was her +companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a +characteristic of the gods." + +"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even +for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your +cat-headed goddess?" + +"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she +has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the +goddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort +of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose." + +"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith +said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag +from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty. + +"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the +tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of +minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for +this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the +figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but +may come to blows any time." + +He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the +conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr. +Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a +woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the +statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was +waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking: + +"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--" + +"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he +were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further +from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name +by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month +in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no +organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently +puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply. + +"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and +surreptitiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your sex. I'll +come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by." + +He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his +own way. + + + + +V. + +THE BITTER PAST. + All's Well that Ends Well; v.--3. + + +"The Pagans: Friday, Jan. 17. +Pipes, pictures and punch. + GRANT HERMAN." + + +Such was the invitation received one day by each of the Pagans, under a +seal bearing the impress of the goddess Pasht. + +There is little that need be added to Fenton's account of the Pagans. +The society had no organization beyond a rule to meet each month and to +limit its membership to seven; no especial principles beyond an +unformulated although by no means unexpressed antagonism against +Philistinism. Fenton had suggested Pasht as a sort of _dea mater_, +and had furnished the seal bearing the image of that goddess which it +was customary to use upon the notifications of meetings; and for the +rest there was nothing definite to distinguish this group of earnest +and sometimes fiery young men from any other. They doubtless said a +great many foolish things, but they did so many wise ones that it +seemed but reasonable to assume that there must be some grains of +wisdom mingled with whatever dross was to be found in their speech. + +Their views were extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining +astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try +the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were +restrained by any conventionality from a free expression of opinion. + +It was on the afternoon of the day fixed for the Pagan meeting when +Helen Greyson took her way across the Common and through the business +portion of the city to the building down by the wharves where were the +studios of Herman and his pupils. It was feebly raining, the weather +having been decidedly whimsical all that week, and the clouds rolled in +ragged, sullen masses overhead. Helen felt the gloom of the day as a +vague depression which she endeavored in vain to shake off, and +hastened towards her studio, hoping to be able to lose herself in her +work. + +Picking her steps among the piles of fire-brick and terra-cotta which +lumbered the yard and the long shed skirting the building, which was a +terra-cotta manufactory, she let herself in at a side door and went +directly to her studio. + +Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment +studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to +work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition. + +She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon +the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer +to her invitation, Grant Herman entered. + +He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse +bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in +an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, +giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in +his eye harmonized well. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then +stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence. + +"Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil +asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that +despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in +the best of spirits. + +"No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation +in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify +those folds--so." + +As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. +Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and +without thought she said, involuntarily: + +"You have a new ring!" + +"Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an +intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in +Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and +at his death he in turn sent it back to me." + +"But Hoffmeir has been dead several years." + +"More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands." + +The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, +and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the +exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its +origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save +that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal +bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from +the awakening of memories connected with it. + +"It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it +does, so long after Hoffmeir's death." + +"It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with +it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you +can send no answer!" + +The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. +Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having +never before seen him so deeply moved. + +"I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said seemed +intrusive, though of course it was not meant to be." + +"It did not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent +my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." + +"I hope nothing bad has happened," said Helen, quickly. + +"No, nothing; it's only this message from dear old Hoffmeir." + +He walked away and pulled aside the curtain which screened the lower +half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a +vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her +modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how +best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved +inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy +walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of +the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, +and from that turned toward the robust form by the window. + +"Come, Mr. Herman," she said at length, in a tone half jesting, "I +never saw you so somber." + +"It is not that Hoffmeir is dead, poor fellow!" Herman replied, +answering her unspoken question. "I'd made up my mind to endure that, +and any man with his over-sensitive temperament is better off on the +other side of the grass than this any day. I may as well tell you, Mrs. +Greyson, though as a rule I do not find much comfort in blurting out +things. The fact is that Hoffmeir and I quarreled over a girl. We were +both in love with her, like two young fools as we were; but she'd +promised to marry me, and--it was a deal better that she didn't, too. I +thought he tried to take her from me. Now I know I was wrong, and that +Fritz was as high-souled as a god in the matter; but then I sent him +back his ring, and broke off with him and her too. I was a fiery young +fool in those days," he added, with a sad and bitter smile, "a young +fool." + +"And was it never explained?" + +"Never until to-day. He was far too proud a man to call me back." + +"But the girl?" queried Helen, with increasing eagerness. "What did she +do?" + +"Oh, the girl," he repeated, turning away again and directing his gaze +out of the window; "what would you expect her to do? She was only a +peasant; and though I was honest enough then, I outgrew that fever +centuries ago." + +"Yes, you did," returned Helen, with gentle persistence, "but what did +she do?" + +"What do women usually do when they break with one lover? Get another, +I suppose!" + +The words were so hard and coarse to come from a man like Grant Herman +that she involuntarily looked up quickly at him, and perhaps he noticed +the action. + +It was evident that some deep pain had provoked the expression, yet had +found no relief in the rough words. The sculptor turned toward his +companion as if to speak. Then slowly his eyes fell, and he said +firmly, if a little stiffly: + +"I believe I do her injustice. If she ever loved a man she was one who +would love him always." + +He left the little room without more words, his firm, even tread +sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio +was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay +wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in +thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to +give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her +bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she passed +the door of Herman's studio the sculptor opened it. + +"I do not know," he said, extending his hand, "what made me so rude +this afternoon. I am a bear of a fellow, but I had meant to treat you +well." + +He had fully recovered his composure, but his evident desire to efface +the impression he had made naturally rendered it more lasting in +Helen's mind. + + + + +VI. + +A BOND OF AIR. + Troilus and Cressida; i.--3. + + +Had Helen been present at the scene which took place in Herman's studio +earlier in the afternoon, she would perhaps have wondered less at his +disturbance. + +In response to the sculptor's request made at the Club when Ninitta's +name was first mentioned, Bently, when the girl finished posing for +him, sent her to the sculptor's studio. + +She came a day or two later than Bently had directed her, not +hastening, although for six years she had shaped her entire life to the +end of meeting Grant Herman. She came into the studio as calmly and as +quietly as if it were some familiar place which she had left but +yesterday, and she greeted the sculptor with as even and musical tone +as in the old Roman days when as yet nothing had occurred to stir her +peaceful bosom. + +For his part the man stood and looked at her in silence. Even when a +ghost from the past has appeared at his especial summons, one seldom +sees it unmoved, and Herman was conscious that his heart beat more +quickly, that he breathed more heavily as Ninitta let fall behind her +the rug _portière_ and came towards him through the studio. + +She had a dark, homely face, only redeemed from positive ugliness by +her deep, expressive eyes. Her figure was superb; rather slender, lithe +and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was +long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep +of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably +adapted to display the lines of her supple form. As she walked down the +studio, setting her feet firmly and carrying her head with fine poise, +Grant Herman felt the ghost of an old passion stir in his heart. + +"How do you do?" he composedly answered her greeting. "You have +improved since I saw you last." + +"Thank you," she said, in a rich voice with strong but pleasant accent. +"I have had time." + +"But improvement is not always a question of time," returned he. "Look +at me." + +"You have grown old," Ninitta commented, regarding him keenly. "You are +gray now." + +"Yes," retorted the other lightly, "I am an old man." It is really a +very long time since you posed for me in my little den at Rome." + +"You remember those days perhaps, sometimes?" she said, dropping the +long lashes over her eyes. + +A shadow passed over Herman's high brow. + +"Is one likely to forget such days?" he demanded. "Is one likely to +forget how love may be turned to treachery and--" + +"Pardon," the woman interrupted with dignity. "I did not come to be +reproached, _eccelenza_. You have not forgotten Signor Hoffmeir?" + +"No," he answered, with a deepening frown. "I have not forgotten the +man who pretended to be my friend and proved it by stealing my +betrothed." + +"It is well that you have not forgotten," Ninitta went on calmly, but +earnestly, "for I have a message from him. He charged me when he was +dying," she added, crossing herself, "to give it to you with my own +hands. I have been waiting for all these years, but now I am free of my +promise." + +Herman took the packet she extended toward him, and turned abruptly +away. Ninitta seated herself in one of the tall easy chairs, removed +her hat, and began a leisurely survey of the place. The sounds from the +wharf outside, the cries of the sailors, the creaking of the cordage +and the ships came softened and mellowed like the daylight into the +wide, dim studio, giving a certain sense of remoteness by the contrast +they suggested between the silence within and the stir of the world +without. For all her outward calm, Ninitta's heart was beating hotly, +and she longed with a great yearning for a touch from the hand of the +silent man before her; for a word of kindness from his lips. She +watched him furtively, under cover of looking at a cast of Celini's +Perseus upon a bracket above his head, as he stood reading the letter +from Hoffmeir. + +"Why did you not bring this to me before?" the sculptor asked at +length, turning towards her. "It is six years now." + +"Have I been able to shape my life?" returned Ninitta. "I have followed +you to Florence, to Paris; you came to America. I followed you to New +York; you were here. I have never ceased trying to reach you. It was +not easy for me to cross half the world alone and without help; with no +friends, no money; with nothing." + +"But you have been in Boston a couple of months." + +"Yes," she said quietly, looking up into his face. "But you knew it. I +waited for you to send for me." + +"I have only known it a week," was the sculptor's reply. "Do you know +what was in Hoffmeir's letter?" + +"His ring; the one you wore in Rome." + +"But do you know what he wrote?" + +"No," she answered. "How should I?" + +Her questioner looked at her a moment in silence. She put up her head +proudly with an involuntary response to the questioning which his +silence implied, and met his eyes unflinchingly. Yet he put his thought +into words. + +"It is seven years since I saw you," he said at length. + +"It is seven years," she echoed. + +"In seven years a great deal may happen," continued he, still regarding +her closely. + +"Much, much has happened," she returned, still meeting his gaze without +shrinking. + +"Are you married?" he asked, with a certain abruptness which to a +careful observer might have indicated that the question cost him an +effort. + +"No," Ninitta returned simply; "how could I be when I was betrothed to +you?" + +"But that was broken off--" + +The sentence stuck in his throat; and he wondered that he could have +begun it. He wondered, too, how he could even have doubted the faith of +the woman before him; and most of all he wondered if he had ever really +loved her. He had an irritating consciousness that something was +expected of him which he was unwilling to give; some sign of +tenderness, some caress such as befitted the reconciliation of lovers +long separated by misunderstanding and blinding jealousy. He felt as if +he were falling below the demands of the occasion, most annoying of +sensations to the masculine mind. But an important interview can with +difficulty be changed from the key in which it is begun, and even had +his feelings prompted a display of tenderness, he felt that it would +seem abrupt and forced. He waited for Ninitta to speak. + +"Yes," she said, after a moment, as he did not continue, "it was broken +off, but Signor Hoffmeir said that was because you did not understand, +and that everything would be as it had been when you got his letter." + +A sad hopelessness began to appear in her eyes; she had of old been too +accustomed to submit to her lover's will to assume the initiative now, +despite the development and strength which time had given to her +character. The sculptor did not dream how her heart throbbed beneath +her quiet demeanor, but he was too sensitive not to be touched by the +unconscious appeal of her voice and look. + +Seven years before, an enthusiastic student in Rome, he had loved or +believed he loved, the peasant girl Ninitta, whom he had found in an +excursion to Capri and induced to come to the Eternal City as a model. + +Too honorable to betray her, he had meant to make the model his wife, +and was betrothed to her with a solemnity of which he was keenly +reminded to-day by the ring which she still wore upon her finger. +Circumstances had convinced him, however, that Ninitta was deceiving +him, and that she preferred the artist Hoffmeir, his best friend. To +break off both engagement and friendship without listening to a word +of explanation, to leave Rome and Italy, were comparatively easy for a +passionate man stung to the quick by a double treachery. To forget was +more difficult, and although a thousand times had Herman assured +himself that he had extinguished the last spark of emotion concerning +this episode, the faintest breath of an old memory was still sufficient +to rekindle some seemingly dead ember. To-day, holding in his hand the +letter from his lost friend which removed all his doubts, he saw that +instead of being injured he had himself been cruel and unjust; he felt +the full anguish of having committed an irreparable fault. We may +outlive our past; its sorrows we may forget, its wrongs we may forgive, +we may even smile at its crushed hopes, ambitions and loves with +scarcely a tinge of bitterness; but that which we have been stings us +ever with the burning pain of an undying remorse. It is not what we +have done which awakens our deepest self-scorn; it is the fact that we +were this which made it possible for us to do it. To feel that he had +been capable of the cruelty of abandoning his betrothed and of wounding +his closest friend, merely from a groundless suspicion, was to Grant +Herman a pain never to be wholly outlived. + +Nor was he without a teasing pain, through a less noble trait in his +nature, from the consciousness that he had loved Ninitta. Once the +fires of love have burned out, any mortal is apt to be lost in amazed +wonderment how they were ever kindled; and that it was hard for Grant +Herman, at thirty-five, to understand how Grant Herman, at +twenty-seven, could have adored an Italian peasant model is not so +without precedent as to be wholly incomprehensible. + +Ninitta had been a good girl, his thoughts ran, was doubtless so still; +her figure was enchanting, he would have been no sculptor had he failed +to appreciate that; he had been a boy, a foolish youngster to be +dizzied by a rushing of the blood to his head; but to make her his wife +now---- + +"Ninitta," he said, suddenly, breaking off from his thoughts into +words, "I am not well to-day: come to-morrow. Are you comfortably +settled in town? Do you need money?" + +"No," she answered, rising, "I do not want money." + +She went slowly down the studio without further word, only turning back +as she passed Bently's picture for which she had posed, and which had +been brought for the meeting of the Pagans. + +"You have seen," she said, "I am able to earn. I have learned much +while I was bringing you that letter. Across the world is a long way. +No; I have no need of money." + + + + +VII. + +IN WAY OF TASTE. + Troilus and Cressida; iii.--3. + + +Grant Herman's studio, in which the Pagans met that night, was in +its way no less unique than the company there gathered. It was a +great, misshapen place, narrow, half a hundred feet long, and +disproportionately high, with undressed brick walls and cement floor. +The upper half of one of the end walls was taken up with large windows, +before which were drawn dingy curtains. Here and there about the place +were scattered modeling stands, water tanks mounted upon rude tripods, +casts, and the usual lumber of a sculptor's studio; while upon the +walls were stuck pictures, sketches, and reproductions in all sorts of +capricious groupings. + +In one corner a flight of stairs led to a gallery high up against the +wall, over the rude railing of which looked the heads of a couple of +legless statues. From this gallery the stairs continued to ascend until +a door near the roof was reached, leading to unknown regions well up in +the building behind which the studio had been built as an afterthought. +On shelves were confusedly disposed dusty bits of bronze, plaster, +coarse pottery and rare glass; things valueless and things beyond price +standing in careless fellowship. A canvas of Corot looked down upon a +grotesque, grimacing Japanese idol, a beautiful bronze reproduction of +a vase by Michael Angelo stood shoulder to shoulder with a bean-pot +full of tobacco; a crumpled cravat was thrown carelessly over the arm +of a dancing faun, while a cluster of Barye's matchless animals were +apparently making their way with great difficulty through a collection +of pipes, broken modeling tools, faded flowers and loose papers. Every +where it was evident that the studio of Herman differed from heaven in +at least its first law. + +Quite in keeping with the picturesque, richly stored room, was the +group of men walking about the place or seated near the rough table +upon which refreshments were placed. On this table were a couple of +splendid punch-bowls of antique cut glass, which, if not full now, had +unmistakable marks of having been so earlier in the evening. A coarse +dish of yellow earthen ware beside them held an ample supply of +biscuits, and was in turn flanked by a couple of plates of cheese. +Fruit, beer, and tobacco in various forms, with abundant glasses and +pipes, completed the furnishing of the board, upon which a newspaper +supplied the place of a cloth. + +Tom Bently's long, shapely limbs were disposed in a big easy-chair by +the table, his tongue being just now employed in one of his not +infrequent harangues upon art, his remarks being plentifully spiced +with profanity. + +"Whatever crazy ideas on art," Bently was saying, "aren't good for any +thing else have to be put into a book. The surest recommendation in art +circles is getting out a book or giving a rubbishy lecture. Every woman +who has painted a few bunches of flowers or daubed a little pottery, +writes a book to tell how she did it; as if it were the most +astonishing thing in the world." + +"Women are very like hens," interpolated Fenton; "they always cackle +most over the smallest egg." + +"If any one of the crew," continued Bently, "could appreciate a +fiftieth part of the suggestions in a single sketch of an old master, +she might have something to write about." + +"But then she would know enough to keep still," said Rangely. + +"Oh, a woman never knows enough to keep still," Bently retorted. "It is +damned amusing to hear the average American----" + +A chorus of protestations arose. + +"We'll have nothing about the 'Average American,' Bently!" + +"Start somebody else on his hobby," suggested Ainsworth; "that's the +only way to choke Bently off. Where's Fenton? I never knew him quiet +for so long in my life." + +Arthur had been watching his companions and smoking in silence. He +smiled brilliantly at Ainsworth's challenge. + +"I'm overwhelmed by Bently's oaths," he said. "He outdoes himself +to-night." + +"When it comes time for Tom's epitaph," observed Rangely, "I shall +suggest that it be a dash." + +"Why do you swear so?" inquired Ainsworth. "Don't you think it in +execrable taste?" + +"Taste?" laughed Bently. "Yes; it's so far above all taste as to be a-- +sight higher and bigger." + +"I make a distinction," Herman put in good naturedly, "between swearing +and blasphemy; and Tom never blasphemes. His cursing is all in the +interest of the highest virtues." + +"Profanity is like smoking," added Tom. "Every thing depends upon how +you do it. The English, for instance, smoke for the brutality of the +thing; they never have any of the French _finesse,_ and their +smoking is nothing less than a crime. But as the Arabs smoke it is one +of the loftiest virtues; there's something godlike about it. + +"It is from smoking," Fenton chimed in, "that the Orientals learned how +to treat women; for a woman is like tobacco, the aroma should be +enjoyed and the ashes thrown away." + +"By George!" exclaimed one of the Pagans, moved by some rare +compunction to remember that he had a wife at home, "that's infamous, +Arthur." + +"It is my belief," observed Ainsworth deliberately, "that Fenton lies +awake nights to invent beastly things to say about women, and when he +gets something that he thinks is smart he throws it into the +conversation any where, without the slightest regard to whether it fits +or not." + +"What makes you so bitter against women?" asked Bently. + +"Yes," added Rangely, with mock deprecation. "Why do you want to +annihilate the sex? What harm have women ever done to you?" + +"Oh," retorted the artist, "it is on theoretical principles, purely. I +adore that masculine ideal which man calls woman, but only finds in his +brain. The highest on earth is reached only by the absolute elimination +of the feminine. Ah! man is at his best in war," he went on, his +attitude becoming less studied and more forcible, as he allowed his +intellectual interest to overpower his vanity; "there he is all +masculine; man without the limitations that the presence of woman +imposes upon him. There woman is ignored, and even if she has been the +cause of the war--and to be the cause of war is woman's noblest +prerogative!--she is for the time being as completely forgotten as if +she had never existed. She slips into oblivion as does the horn of grog +which gives his courage." + +Fenton was in a mood when he fancied he was talking well, a conviction +which was not always an accurate measure of the real worth of his +remarks. He delighted in presenting half truths in forcible +phraseology, relishing the taste of an epigram quite without reference +to its verity. He amused himself and his friends with talk more or less +brilliant, of which no one knew better than himself the fallacy, but +whose cleverness atoned with him for all defects. The intellectual +excitement of giving free rein to his fancy and his tongue was +dangerously pleasant to Arthur, who often more than half convinced +himself of the verity of his extravagant theories, and oftener still +involved himself in their defense by yielding to the mere whim of +phrasing them effectively. + +"You are on your high horse to-night, Fenton," cried Rangely, "you make +no more of a metaphor than a racer of a hurdle." + +"Don't stop him," Ainsworth said. "Let him run the course out now he's +on the track." + +"When man comes into his kingdom," Fenton broke out again, too fully +aroused to mind the banter, yet with a sort of double consciousness +enjoying the absurdity of the whole conversation, "when man comes into +his kingdom, when we get to the perfection of the race, there will be +no women. The ultimate man will be masculine--men, only men; gloriously +and eternally masculine!" "But how will the race perpetuate itself?" +asked Tom in as matter of fact a tone as he might have inquired the +time of day. + +"Perpetuate itself!" blazed the other. "The race will not need to +perpetuate itself. The world will be peopled with gods! When once women +are gone the race will have become immortal!" + +A shout of mingled applause and derision greeted this outburst, amid +which Fenton threw himself back in a lounging chair and lighted a fresh +cigar. He was intoxicated with himself, and few draughts are more +dangerous. + +"Take to the lecture platform, Fenton," jeered Ainsworth. "You'll make +your mark in the world yet." + +"I wonder you stopped at immortality," remarked Fred Rangely. "You +usually go on to dispose of the future state." + +"Impossible," retorted the artist, "for you never heard me say I +believed in one." + +"That's a fact," confessed the other, "but you insist so emphatically +that women have no moral sense that your philosophy certainly would +dispose of them if it allow any future state." + +"For my part," declared Herman, "I've heard Fenton talk nonsense as +long as I want to; let's look at the pictures." + +An informal exhibition had been arranged, consisting of pictures loaned +by friends, and including several by members of the club. The most +important of the latter was a gypsy which Bently had just completed, +and which exhibited that artist's defects and excellences in the +emphatic manner usual with his productions. The _motif_ was better +than the _technique_, but Bently's splendid feeling for color +somehow carried him through, and made the picture not only striking but +rich and suggestive. + +"If you could learn to draw, Tom," Fenton said, as they stood looking +at it, "you'd be the biggest man in America." + +"Is that the new model you were talking about?" asked Rangely. + +"Yes," Bently answered. "Isn't she a stunner?" + +"I thought that shoulder was something new," put in Fenton. "The girl +poses well; trust a woman with shoulders like that to know how to +display them." + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Grant Herman in sudden and rare irritation, +"can you never have done slurring at women? Didn't you have a mother? +In heaven's name let some woman escape your tongue for her sake!" + +Such an outburst from their host produced a profound sensation upon the +Pagans. The most tolerant of men, he was accustomed to listen to their +wholesale denunciations of all things with a good natured smile, +contenting himself with a calm contradiction now and then. Proverbial +for his patience and good temper, he produced the greater sensation now +when he gave vent to his anger upon a subject which not only Fenton but +every guest present usually considered fair game. + +"I'm sorry I vexed you, Herman," Fenton said, turning to him after a +moment's silence, "but however much I've abused women, you never heard +me blackguard a woman in your life." + +"You are right," the sculptor replied, catching the other's slender +hand in his stalwart grasp. "I beg your pardon. I'm out of sorts, I +suppose, or I shouldn't be quarreling like a Christian. Let's brew a +new bowl and drink to Pagan harmony." + + + + +VIII. + +THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; ii.--7. + + +After the Pagans had separated that night Fred Rangely lingered in +Herman's studio. + +The sculptor somehow found it possible to be more frank with Rangely +than with any other of his companions, and although there was a +difference of some half a dozen in the count of their years, and +perhaps more in their ages as measured by experiences, Herman's strong +but naturally stormy nature found much pleasure in the calm philosophy +of his friend. + +Scarcely were the two men alone, when Rangely turned to his host and +demanded abruptly: + +"Now, I want to know, Grant, what in the devil is the matter with you +to-night? What set you out to pitch into Fenton so?" + +Herman poured out a glass of wine and swallowed it before replying. + +"Because I am a damned idiot!" he retorted savagely. "I'm all shaken +up, Fred; and the worst of it is that I don't see any way out of the +snare I'm in." + +"It isn't real trouble, I hope." + +"Isn't it! By Jove!" cried the sculptor, "the more honest a man is in +this world the worse off he is. If I hadn't had a conscience when I was +a young fellow, I should be all right now. Who is it--Fenton?--that is +always saying that he asks forgiveness for his virtues and thanks the +gods for every vice he can cultivate?" + +"Well," Rangely remarked, filling a pipe, and curiously surveying his +companion, who was raging up and down the studio, "you don't seem to be +in an especially cheerful and enlivening frame of mind; that's a fact. +If a fellow can be of any help, call on; if not, at least try to take +it a little more gently for the sake of your friends." + +"Do any thing?" retorted the other. "No; there's nothing to be done. +I'm a fool." + +"Even that disease has been remedied before now," Rangely said coolly;" +though usually experience and time are necessary to the cure." + +"I'll tell you the whole story," Herman exclaimed, flinging himself +into a chair. "It is all simple enough. It is always simple enough to +tangle things up so that Lucifer himself cannot unsnarl them. When I +was in Rome I was in love--crazily, gushingly in love, you understand, +like a big schoolboy--with a girl I found in Capri. She was a good +little thing, with a figure like Helen's; that's what did the business +for me. I coaxed her to Rome to be my model, and then that infernal +conscience of mine made me ask her to marry me. I could have done any +thing I liked with her; I knew that; she had nobody to look after her +but a half sister who paid about as much attention to her as if she had +been a grasshopper. But the infernal New England Puritanism in my blood +wouldn't let me hurt her." + +"And somebody else wasn't so scrupulous?" asked the listener as his +friend paused in his story. + +"You think so?" returned Herman eagerly. "Then I wasn't so unutterably +a scoundrel for thinking so, too, was I? I did doubt her; I had reason +to. She posed for a friend of mine, a painter; you know, of course-- +Hang it! What's the use of going into all the details. I was poor as a +church mouse or she shouldn't have done it at all, even for him. The +gist of the story is that I was jealous and flew out at both of them, +and left Rome in a rage!" + +The two men sat in silence for some moments. Rangely puffed vigorously +at his pipe, while his companion stared savagely into the shadows in +the further end of the studio. Neither looked at the other; the hearer +appreciated too well the shame-facedness by which these unusual +confidences must be accompanied. From some distant steeple a clock was +faintly heard striking two. + +"And to-day," Herman at length began again in an altered voice, "to-day +she came here. She has followed me all these years, going through +heaven knows what experiences and hardships, to bring me the proof that +I was a madman blinded by groundless jealousy, and that instead of +being wronged I cursedly abused both her and poor dead old Hoffmeir." + +Again there came an interval of silence. A lamp flickered and went out +with a muffled sound. The thoughts of both men were of that formless +character scarcely to be distinguished from emotions; on the one hand +sad and remorseful, on the other sympathetic and pitiful. + +"Well?" Rangely ventured after a time. + +"But what shall I do?" demanded Herman. "I cannot marry her." + +"No, of course not. She cannot expect it after banging about the +world." + +"Oh, it isn't that," the other said hastily. "She is as good and as +pure as when I left her; at least I believe so. And she does expect +it." + +"She does expect it!" echoed his friend. "Ah!" + +The reception of a confidence is a most delicate ordeal through which +few people come unscathed. Rare individuals are born with the ready +sympathies, quick apprehension, and exquisite tact needful; but the +vast majority are sure to wound their friends if the latter ever +venture to approach with their armor of reticence laid wholly aside. + +Although perhaps not the ideal confidant, Rangely was sympathetic and +possessed of at least sufficient discretion to avoid comment until he +knew the whole situation and was sure that his opinion was desired. He +was still unable fully to understand his friend's agitation, the task +of disposing of an old sweetheart in so inferior a position not +appearing to his easy-going nature a matter sufficiently difficult to +warrant so deep disquiet. + +Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he +was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most +secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a +savage sense of doing penance by the self-inflicted torture. + +"Yes," he repeated, "she expects it. Why shouldn't she, poor thing? She +has not changed, and she does not understand that I may have altered." + +"And you have?" + +Grant Herman looked up and down the great studio, now growing dusky +from the burning out of candles here and there. An antique lamp which +was lighted only on special occasions stood where the breeze came to it +from the high window, and the flame, wind-swept, smoked and flared. +Through the silence the listener's ear could detect a faint sound of +the tide washing against the piles of the wharf outside. + +The sculptor started up suddenly and stood firmly, throwing back his +splendid head and shoulders, and looking straight into the eyes of his +friend. + +"Yes," he said in a clear, low voice. "I have changed. I---There is +some one else." + +"Life," remarked Rangely, with seeming irrelevancy, "life is a +fallacy." + +"I'd like to be honorable," Herman continued, "but how can I? It is +impossible to be honest to both her and myself. If I hadn't had any +scruples, then---Bah! What a beast I am! Poor Ninitta." + +Still Rangely smoked in silence, and the sculptor went on again. + +"It has always been my creed that when a man has allowed a woman to +love him--much more, made her love him, as I did--he is a black-hearted +knave to let a change in himself wreck her happiness. Now I am put to +the test." + +"And the other one?" asked Rangely. "Does she know that you care for +her?" + +"I have never said so to her. Heaven only knows how much she feels by +intuition. A man always fancies that the woman he loves can tell." + +"That may depend something on how often you see her." "I see her +nearly every day. She is my pupil." + +"Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Yes," Herman said, a little defiantly, as if now the secret was told +he challenged the right of another man to share it. + +"Is she a widow?" + +"Yes," the other answered, with no perceptible pause, and yet between +the question and his reply had come to him the swift remembrance that +he really knew nothing of his pupil's life or history, and had simply +taken it for granted that her husband was not living. "Arthur Fenton +brought her here," he added, rather thinking aloud than answering any +point of Rangely's query. "He was an old friend of her husband." + +"But what will you do with the other?" + +Instead of replying Herman got up from the seat into which he had flung +himself, and went about the studio putting out the lights. + +"Go home," he said with a whimsical smile. "I'm sure I don't know what +we are talking about at this time of the morning. As for what I shall +do--Well, time will show; I am as ignorant as yourself on the subject." + + + + +IX. + +VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE. + Comedy of Errors; ii.--i. + + +It suited Fenton's whim next morning to dine with Mrs. Greyson. He had +established the habit of dropping in when he chose, always sure of a +welcome, and always sure, too, of a listener to the tirades in which he +was fond of indulging. If Helen did not always accord him agreement, +she at least gave attention, and he cared rather to talk than to +convince. + +His aesthetic taste, moreover, was gratified by the pretty breakfast +table; and he was not without a subtle sense of pleasure in the beauty +and harmonious dress of his hostess, who possessed the rare charm of +contriving to be always well attired. This morning she wore a gown of +russet cashmere with here and there knots of dull gold ribbon, which +tint formed a pleasing link between the stuff and the color of her +clear skin. + +"It is good of you to come," she said, as she poured his coffee. "There +are so few days left before you will have married a wife and cannot +come. I shall miss you very much." + +"Why do you persist in talking in that way?" + +Fenton returned. "I'm not going out of the country or out of the world. +You could not take a more absolute farewell if I were about to be +cremated." + +"You do not know," replied she, smiling. "However, I am glad you are to +be married. It will do you good. You need a wife, if you do dread +matrimony so much." + +"It is abominable," he observed deliberately, "to talk as I do. Of +course I do not mind what you choose to think of me; or rather I am +sure you will not misunderstand." + +"I do not," Mrs. Greyson interpolated significantly. + + "But it seems a reflection upon Miss Caldwell," he continued, +answering her interruption only by a grimace, "for me to discourse of +marriage just as I do. It isn't because I'm not fond of her. It is my +protest against the absurd and false way in which society regards +marriage; in a word against marriage itself." + +Mrs. Greyson understood Arthur Fenton as well as any woman can +understand a man who is her friend. Her friendship softened the +harshness of her judgments, but she could not be blind to his vanity, +his constant efforts at self-deception, and so far as she was in +possession of the facts, she reasoned correctly in regard to his +approaching marriage. + +"No," she said calmly, "it isn't even that. You talk partly for the +sake of saying things that sound effective, and partly because you are +morbid from over introspection. If you were vicious, I should say you +did it as an atonement. Many people would not understand you, but as +I do, it is harmless for you to talk to me." + +"Introspective? Of course. Can any body help being that in this age? +And as for being morbid--it all depends upon definitions. I try to be +honest with myself." + +"The subtlest form of hypocrisy," she answered, "often consists in what +we call being honest with ourselves. I gave that up long ago. You are +not honest with yourself about this marriage. If you don't wish to +marry Miss Caldwell, who forces you to do so?" + +"Forces me to? Good heavens! I do wish to marry her. Of course I don't +ever expect to be perfectly happy. In this inexplicable world natures +that demand that every thing shall be explained must necessarily remain +unsatisfied. Still, I'd take a little more coffee as a palliation of my +lot, if you please." + +"It is well you are to marry," observed Helen, refilling his cup. +"You've concentrated your attention upon yourself too long." + +"But I am afraid of poverty. If I find some old Boston duffer with a +lot of money, and can fool him into admiring the frame of one of my +pictures, he may buy it, and I can pay the butcher, the baker and the +gas man for a week. If I can't, I must daub the canvas a little higher +and try the same game in New York, and--" + +"Rubbish!" she interrupted. "The difficulty is, you are too +self-indulgent. You are too much afraid of the little discomforts." + +"No," he answered; "men--at least sensitive men--do not suffer so much +from the discomforts of poverty as from its indignities." + +"If--" began Helen; but without finishing, she rose from the table, +went to the window and stood looking out. + +Fenton watched her idly, knowing perfectly that the woman before him +was capable of sacrificing for him all the little income which was +her's; and he wondered, as men will, how deep her feeling for him had +really become, and whether it had ever passed that mysterious and +undefinable line which separates love from friendship. + +Helen had often endeavored to assist the artist out of some financial +difficulty by buying one of his unsellable pictures, a pretext which he +had the grace to put aside by refusing to sell, sometimes sending her +as a gift precisely the work for which he could most easily find a +purchaser. There was continually a silent struggle, more or less +consciously carried on between the two, although seldom appearing upon +the surface. Too much Fenton's friend not to be pained by his +weaknesses, Helen was stung to the quick by a certain insincerity +which she often detected alike beneath his raillery and his cynicism. +Too noble to yield to any belief in a friend's unworthiness without +resistance, she suffered anew whenever his words seemed to ring false, +and now there were tears in her eyes as she looked out into the sunny +street. She pressed them firmly back, however, and turned a calm face +towards her guest, who sat playing with his spoon and watching her with +a half troubled, half amused expression. + +"I've composed my epitaph," he said irrelevantly. "Will you please +compose my monument." + +"Oh, willingly. But it will be necessary to know the epitaph, so that +the monument may express the same sentiment." + +"I shall have no name," Arthur returned. "Only-- + _L'homme est mort. Soit_. +How does that strike you?" + +"Ah," she cried impulsively, "how does any thing strike me? You play at +being wretched as sentimental school girls do, when in their case it is +slate pencils and pickled limes and in your case it is vanity. If you +were half as miserable as you pretend, you'd have blown your brains out +long ago, or deemed yourself the veriest craven alive. I've no patience +with such attitudinizing." + +"You are partly right," he admitted, "but do any of us find the savor +of life so sweet as to make it worth while?" + +Something in his voice, a ring of what might be pity in his tone, +humiliated Helen. She suspected that he thought her outburst arose from +a too great fondness for himself, for grief at parting and at giving +him up to another. She struggled to regain her calmness; she felt the +impossibility of contradicting the belief which she was sure existed in +his mind; she was conscious that to say, "I do not love you," would +appear to him proof incontrovertible that the reverse was true. Her +throat contracted painfully and she cast down her eyes lest the tears +in them should be seen. + +"The Caffres," Fenton continued, after an instant's pause, "are said to +be so fond of sugar that they will eat a handful of sand rather than +lose a grain or two that has fallen to the ground; it seems to me life +is the sand and joy in the proportion of the sugar. I'm not willing to +take the sand, and I protest against it. There is no morality in it." + +"There is no morality in any thing but death," Helen returned drearily. + +"Death!" echoed Fenton. "Do you call that moral! Death that crushes the +emotions, that kills the passions, that pollutes the flesh; the monster +which debauches all that is sacred in the physical, that degrades to +the level of the lowest all that is high in the intellectual--is this +your idea of the moral? The coarsest rioting of sensual life is sacred +beside it. Death moral? _Mon Dieu_, Helen, how you do abuse +terms!" + +Fenton was continually treading upon the dangerous edge between pathos +and bathos, between impressiveness and absurdity. Had he not possessed +extremely sensitive perceptions which enabled him to judge swiftly and +exactly of the effect of his declamations, and the keenest sense of the +ludicrous that helped him to turn into ridicule whatever could not be +made to pass for earnest, much of his extravagant talk would have +excited amusement and, not impossibly, contempt, instead of producing +the half serious effect he desired. He could impart a vast air of +sincerity to his speech, moreover, and could even for the moment be +sincere. In the present case his earnest and real feeling saved this +outburst from the somewhat theatrical air which the words might easily +have had if spoken at all artificially. + +"The history of mankind," went on the artist, in a sort of two-fold +consciousness, deeply feeling on the one hand what he was saying, but +on the other endeavoring to direct the conversation to generalities in +which would be lost the dangerous personal remarks which threatened, +"the whole history of mankind is a protest against death as an insult, +an outrage. All religions are only mankind's defiance of death more or +less largely phrased." + +"No," Helen said. "Not our defiance; our confession of a craven fear. I +am afraid of death. I don't dare take my life." + +"We are talking," responded her companion, in his turn leaving the +table and approaching the window, "like a couple of unmitigated ghouls. +I acknowledge your right to put aside your life if it bores you; man +has at least that one inalienable right. But why should you? Art is +left still." + +"Art," she repeated with profound sadness; "yes, but a woman is never +content with abstractions. She demands something more definite. And, by +the way, Will came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes! What did he want?" + +"He said he only came to see how I was. I think he recognizes that now +he has come from Europe our secret is sure to leak out soon, and is +looking the ground over to see how it is best to behave. He was very +entertaining; I never enjoyed him more thoroughly." + +"He's a model husband," Fenton observed thoughtfully. "As well as you +like each other, I'll be hanged if I can see why you don't live like +other people." + +"It is precisely because we don't live like other people," was the +reply, "that we do like each other so well. We are the best of friends; +we were the worst possible husband and wife. I hated him officially, +and---There! Why must you bring all that up again? Let the dead past +bury its dead." + +"But the past won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a +persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly +disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll +caricature might be made on that line? Time as a decrepit old sexton, +you know." + +"So few people can joke on those subjects that it would appeal to a +very limited audience, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, that's true of every thing that is good for any thing." + +"Unfortunately the converse is not true, for every thing appealing to a +small audience is by no means good." + +"Not even marriage?" + +"Still harping on matrimony," said Helen, laughing. "What will you do +after the knot is really tied? You speak in the mournful tone of one +who reads _'Lasciate ogni speranza'_ upon his wedding horseshoe." + +"Oh, not quite," he laughed back, "for after marriage a man can always +amuse himself, you know, by looking at any woman he may meet and +fancying how much worse off he might be if he had married her instead +of his wife." + +"Well," Helen remarked, turning, "your conversation is amusing and +doubtless deeply instructive, but I must go to the studio. My +bas-relief will hardly complete itself, I suppose, and I've a splendid +offer for it, to decorate a house in Milton. It is to be paneled into +the side of an oak stairway at the back of the main hall. Isn't that +fine?" + + + + +X. + +O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT. + Hamlet; i.--5. + + +Anomalies are doubtless as truly the product of law as results whose +logic is evident, and the strange relations between Mrs. Greyson and +her husband were therefore to be considered the outcome of fixed causes +from which no other result was possible. + +Married when scarcely more than a girl, shy, undeveloped and ignorant +of the world, Helen came from a secluded life, which had been pretty +equally divided between the library of her dead father and the woods +surrounding the country village where she lived. She had never even +fancied that she loved Dr. Ashton; but she had married him as she would +have obeyed any other command of the stern aunt who had presided +severely over her orphaned childhood. He, half-a-dozen years her +senior, had been enamored of her wonderful beauty and modest +intellectuality; and, being accustomed always to gratify the impulse of +the moment, he had married her with a precipitancy as characteristic as +it was reckless. It was owing to a certain mutual scorn of +conventionalities that Helen and her husband at length decided to +separate. Without the aid of the law and without scandal, they settled +back into single liberty, the wife taking again her father's name. They +had spent their married life abroad, where Dr. Ashton had remained +until a short time previous to the opening of our story, and as neither +husband nor wife had been in their single life known in Boston, and as +Helen was chary of new acquaintances, their relations had thus far +remained undiscovered. Helen, at least, recognized how improbable it +was that this secrecy would long remain inviolate, but she went quietly +on her way, letting events take their own course. + +Arthur Fenton was an old friend of her husband whom Helen had met in +Europe, but had known intimately only during her Boston life. She had +found him sympathetic, responsive and entertaining, and as any lonely +woman clings to the companionship of an appreciative man, she had clung +to the friendship and comradeship of the artist. + +Going across the Common towards the studio on this sunny morning, when +the air was brisk and bracing, the naked trees clearly and delicately +defined against the sky, Helen's thoughts went back to her past; to her +shy, secluded girlhood, to the years of her married life, and to the +way in which she had been living since she and her husband parted. She +reflected with a smile, half pity, half contempt, of the proud, +reticent girl who had pored over books and drawings in the musty, +deserted library at home, almost wondering if she were the same being. +She looked from the Joy Street mall across the hollow which holds the +Frog Pond, the most charming view on the Common, yet not even the +golden sparkle of the water or the beautiful line of the slope beyond +could chase from her mind the picture of the high, dim old room, lined +to the ceiling with book-shelves, dingy and dusty from neglect. She +seemed to hear still the weird tapping of the beech-tree boughs against +the tall narrow windows, and still to smell odor of old leather; she +remembered vividly the dull dizziness that came from stooping too long +over some volume too heavy to hold, above which, half lying upon the +carpetless floor, she had bent with drooping golden curls. She +remembered, too, the remoteness of the real world from the ideal sphere +in which her fancy placed her; how unimportant and unsubstantial to her +had appeared the events of daily life as compared with the incidents of +the world the old books in the musty library opened to her. The life of +these magic tomes was the real, and that humdrum state through which +her visible pathway lay was the dream. To the imaginative girl, half +child, half poet, her marriage had prospectively seemed merely an +accident of the trivial outside existence which surrounded without +penetrating her true being; and the sharpness of the rude awakening +from this childish misconception still pierced the woman's proud soul. + +No woman recalls her childhood without regret, and despite the +philosophy she had cultivated, Helen felt a deep sadness as the old +days, somber and dull though they had been, rose before her. She +hurried her step a little as if to escape her past, when a pleasant +voice at her elbow said: + +"Good morning, Helen. Upon what wickedness are you bent now. You go too +fast to be on a good errand." + +"Good morning, Will," she answered, without turning, for the voice +brought the speaker before her mental vision as plainly as her eyes +could have done. "I was just thinking of you, and of the days when you +found me at home." + +"Yes," responded Dr. Ashton, "what were you thinking of them?" + +"Nothing very pleasant," she answered with a sigh. "What a gorgeous day +it is. Arthur has been breakfasting with me." + +"Arthur is going to be married," remarked her companion good humoredly. +"I've just been out to buy him a wedding present." + +"What is it?" + +"Oh, something he chose himself. It is not safe to tell you, though." + +"Haven't I proved my discretion?" Helen said lightly. "I thought that +by this time you'd be willing to trust me with your most deadly +secrets." + +"This is a deadly secret, indeed," he returned, taking from his pocket +a small morocco case. + +"Oh, jewelry," Helen said, with an accent of disappointment. "I should +never have suspected you of such commonplaceness, Will." + +"Not jewelry; a jewel," retorted Dr. Ashton, opening the case and +displaying a tiny vial. + +"Will!" Helen exclaimed, stopping suddenly and catching her husband by +the arm, "you won't give him that?" + +"Why not? I promised him long ago that I'd get it for him, and he +particularly asked for it as a wedding gift." + +"Oh, Will; don't do it! He'll use it sometime when he's blue; he'll----" + +"Nonsense," responded the physician, restoring the case to his pocket. +"I've diagnosed his case perfectly. He isn't very robust, he's +infernally sensitive, and he's no end morbid. He fancies he may want to +kill himself, and I dare say he will have leanings that way. Most of us +do. He has wanted to a good many times before now, and he is likely to +again, but he won't do it. He's too soft-hearted. He might get up steam +enough as far as courage goes, but he'd never forget other people and +their opinion. He couldn't bear to hurt others, and still less could he +bear the idea of their blaming him. He is precisely the man who cannot +take his own life." + +"But what puts it into his head just now? Why should he marry if he +dreads it so?" + +"It is all of a piece with his morbidness. He is really in love with +Miss Caldwell, I think, but he has brooded over the matter as he broods +over every thing, and seeing the uncertain nature of matrimony, he like +a wise man provides for contingencies. There may be something behind +that I don't know of, but I think not. He'll feel easier if he has +this, and I am honestly doing him a favor, if it isn't in the way he +thinks." + +"I do not know," persisted Helen, "but I do wish you wouldn't do it. +How would his bride feel if she knew?" + +"I don't know her," Dr. Ashton returned coolly, "so of course I can't +tell how sensible she is; but in any case I can trust Arthur's +discretion." + +"She's orthodox," said Helen, "or, no, I think she is not so bad as +that; but she would regard the idea of suicide as unspeakably wicked. +At least I think so; I never saw her but once. Oh, I do hate to have +Arthur marry her. It's dreadful!" + +"Of course; it's dreadful to think of any man's marrying, for that +matter," he returned with a smile, "but he is a man who was sure to do +it sooner or later." + +"He's a man of so much principle," Helen mused, half aloud. + +"Principle," sneered her companion laughingly, "principle is only +formulated policy." + +"I am dreadfully tired of epigrams," sighed Helen as they walked down +West street. "Whether Arthur learned the habit of you or you of him I +don't know; but the pair of you are enough to corrupt all Boston. I do +wish you'd give me that case. I'm sure I need it far more than Arthur +does. He's going to be married, his pictures are praised and are +beginning to sell, he has life before him and every thing to live for, +while I have nothing." + +"Life is before you, too," answered her husband gravely, putting his +hand upon her arm to prevent her flying under the wheels of a carriage +which in her absorption she had not noticed. "Look here, Helen; it +wouldn't be any better if Arthur wanted to marry you. You are too +melancholy alone without having him to push you deeper into the slough +of despond." + +"You are mistaken, Will," was the quiet response. "I am fond of Arthur, +very fond, indeed; but not in that way. I am a fool to grieve about his +marriage; I own that, though after all I've lived through I ought to be +too hardened to care. But you must acknowledge that it isn't very +pleasant for me to see him deliberately going away to marry a woman who +would consider me a Bohemian, and very likely anything but respectable, +because you and I choose to be comfortable apart instead of miserable +together. If I were not so utterly alone in the world, losing a friend +would not be so great a matter, perhaps; but he is all I have now, +Will." + +"It is hard, old lady; that's a fact. I wish I could straighten things +out for you, but I don't see how I can." + +"No," Helen said drearily, "nobody can." + + + + +XI. + +WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED. + Comedy of Errors; i.--I. + + +Upon entering the small studio where her bas-relief stood, Helen found +Herman there before her. He had removed the wet cloths from the clay +and was examining the work with close attention. + +"You need a model for this figure," he said, indicating the month of +May. "You must take that turn of the shoulder from nothing but life." + +Helen came and stood beside him, looking at the work. The instinct of +the artist for the moment superseded all other feelings in her mind, +and she forgot alike her own troubles and the ill-omened gift with +which her husband purposed remembering the nuptials of her friend. + +The figure of May of which Herman spoke was that of a beautiful young +girl casting backward a wistful look at the fallen flowers which she +had dropped but might not stay to gather up again. The splendid +movement of the youthful figure, thrown forward in her running, but +with one shoulder turned toward the spectator, so that the upper +portion of the beautiful bosom was seen, formed one of the finest +details of the composition. + +"Yes," the sculptor said again, "you must have a model for that, and I +have one coming this morning. To be honest, I came up here hoping you'd +need her. I believe she is a good girl, and I do not like the idea of +her being about among the studios." + +He went on to speak of the figure, adding suggestions of treatment, +feeling and posing; and as he talked he was conscious of needlessly +prolonging the conversation for the mere pleasure of being near this +woman, and of secretly cherishing some vague feeling that not only +would Ninitta be safe under Mrs. Greyson's guardianship, but that some +solution of the complexities in which he found himself involved would +result from bringing together the two women so closely connected with +his life. + +He went away into his own studio at length, but Helen had scarcely got +fairly to work before he reappeared with Ninitta. + +Ninitta was much the same in outward appearance as upon the previous +day, but between this morning's mental state and that of yesterday +there was a great gulf. The Italian's character was a strange if not +wholly unique mixture of simplicity and worldly wisdom. All her +experiences, her life as a model in various parts of the world, her +hardships and successes, while teaching her only too sharply the +follies and vices of mankind, had never for an instant shaken her faith +in Grant Herman. He was her god. It is even doubtful if any thing he +could have done would have destroyed her belief in his integrity and +nobility of soul. When he left her, she acquiesced, it is true, but +with a wild passion of anguish. She knew he misjudged, but she chose to +phrase it to herself that he was deceived; his rashness and +hot-headedness were to her only so many fresh evidences of his +greatness of character. She was not the first woman who has vaguely felt +that unreasoning jealousy and passion are admirable or even +essential attributes of virility, and who has worshiped a man as much +for his faults as for his virtues. + +To the dream of meeting Herman with the proofs that he had been +deceived, Ninitta had clung unyieldingly through the dreary years since +the death of Hoffmeir, who had been kind to her for the sake of his +shattered friendship with Herman, and for the sake, too, of his own +hopeless love for herself. It was from mingled shyness and pride that +Ninitta had waited for a summons from the sculptor after she had +reached Boston; but when she had at last gone to his studio it was with +keen emotion. She had not considered that both herself and her old-time +lover had changed in the seven years of separation. She had not +reflected that believing her false he could not but have endeavored to +forget her. She could not know that contact with the world, if it had +not made him ashamed of his youthful enthusiasm, had at least showed +him how the marriage he had contemplated would have appeared in the +eyes of worldly wisdom, and had so educated him that reason was less +helpless before passion than of old. + +But to-day Ninitta was a different woman, changed by the agony of a +night into which had been compressed the bitterness of years. She had +been too sharply wounded at being greeted by a hand-shake in place of +the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead +of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations +between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the +alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a +knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far +keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. +Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her sex stood her +in good stead. She was convinced that some other woman had won the +sculptor's love from her. When she came into Helen's studio this +morning she watched sharply for some token which should show her the +relations in which the two artists stood to each other; but she could +detect nothing significant. Mrs. Greyson was intent only upon her work, +and whatever the sculptor may have felt at the meeting of Helen and +Ninitta, he made no outward sign. + +The model showed a quickness of comprehension in taking the pose +required, and the shoulder she bared was of so exquisite mold that +Helen's keenest artistic powers were aroused. Ninitta understood the +art of posing as a painter knows the use of brush and colors; she had +for it an inborn capacity impossible except in the child of an art +land. Moved by the inspiration of that most beautiful bust, Mrs. +Greyson worked enthusiastically, scarcely noticing when her master left +the room, an indication of indifference which the model did not fail to +note. + + + + +XII. + +WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur +Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and +it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The +sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit +her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend +with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to +care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a +small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she +declined being hampered by a chaperon. + +"My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to +come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be +an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I +suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more." + +On the present occasion Arthur Fenton asked leave to light his cigar, +and although Herman felt this something of a profanation, it was not +long before he and Rangely added their wreaths to the smoke garlands +which hung upon the air, and had not the hostess become somewhat +accustomed to tobacco in foreign _ateliers,_ it is to be doubted +if she could have complacently endured the fumes which arose. + +All subjects of heaven and earth came drifting into the talk, and at +length something evoked from Rangely his opinion of Emerson. + +"Emerson was great," he said, "Emerson often recalled Goethe in +Goethe's cooler and more intellectual moods; but Emerson lacked the +loftiness of vice; he was eternally narrow." + +"'The loftiness of vice,'" echoed the hostess. "What does that mean? It +sounds vicious enough." + +"Emerson," Rangely returned, "knew only half of life. He never had any +conception of the passionate longing for vice _per se;_ the +thrill, the glow which comes to some men at the splendid caress of sin +in her most horrible shape. Do you see what I mean? He couldn't imagine +the ecstasy that may lie in mere foulness." + +"No," replied Helen, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. Though I am sure I +ought to be shocked. Do you mean that he should have been vicious?" + +"Certainly not; but it was his limitation not to be tempted; not to be +able to project himself into a personality which riots in wickedness +far more intensely than a saint follows righteousness." + +"If you mean that he could not have been wicked if he tried, that, I +own, was in a sense a limitation." + +"Yes; and a fatal one. No man can be wholly great who understands only +one half of human impulses." + +"But what do you mean by wickedness?" demanded Herman, a little +combatively. + +"Oh," laughed Rangely, "I'm not to be entrapped into giving +metaphysical and theological definitions. I mean what we are expected +to call wickedness, conventionally speaking. I've an old cad of a +parson in my new play and I am trying to decide if it will do to have +him advocate a grand scheme for reforming the world by reversing +definitions and calling those things men choose to do virtues, and +dubbing whatever man detests, vices." + +"That is rather more clever than orthodox," Helen laughed. "How is your +play getting on, Mr. Rangely?" + +"Oh, fairish, thank you. The trouble is that the drama went out of +fashion long ago. First they replaced it by dresses and scenery, but +now every thing has given way to souvenir programmes; so I've got to +write up to a souvenir or I sha'n't make any thing out of the play." + +"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations." + +"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three +successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to +proper art levels." + +Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and +regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet, +scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's +thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his +favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler +than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated +pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with +little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings. + +"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom +he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more +melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he +has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson +watches him." + +Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen +observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent. +She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more +intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully, +although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what +was passing in the mind of her silent friend. + +"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He +is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an +unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like +him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently +selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that +she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the +other side; I am sure I hope so." + +She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes +met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine +fibers to knit people together. + +The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had +expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition. + +"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is +bow-legged!" + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe +from you for the whole evening." + +"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has +probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall +have something wild directly." + +"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising, +"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air +with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades +smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on +principle." + +He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to +lead her to the instrument. + +"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her +guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas +lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like +to be looked at too keenly when I sing." + +The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft +chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs. +Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come, +and he never forgot the thrill of that experience. + +An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the +singer. + +Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she +sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The +words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_ + + +I strew these opiate flowers +On thy restless pillow,-- +They were plucked from Orient bowers, +By the Indian billow. +Be thy sleep +Calm and deep, +Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep. + +Away, unlovely dreams! +Away, false shapes of sleep! + +Be his, as Heaven seems, +Clear and bright and deep! +Soft as love and calm as death, +Sweet as summer night without a breath. + +Sleep! sleep! My song is laden +With the soul of slumber; +It was sung by a Samian maiden +Whose lover was of the number +Who now keep +That calm sleep +Whence none may wake; where none shall weep. + +I touch thy temples pale! +I breathe my soul on thee! +And could my prayers avail, +All my joy should be +Dead, and I would live to weep, +So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep! + + +It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The +strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful, +sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating, +passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was +a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct +appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each +as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a +confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him +honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It +was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which +made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before +hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his +being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been +moved with wonder and longing. + +Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of +the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho +singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved, +and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her +presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music +could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for +the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a +sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his +friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a +right to see. + + + + +XIII. + +THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART. + Macbeth; iv.--3. + + +A hush followed the conclusion of Mrs. Greyson's song. + +No one wished to speak what all felt, and when the silence was broken, +it was with talk of the poet rather than of the singer. To the singing +they came only by slow degrees, and over it, when at length their +admiration found speech, they passed lightly. + +One thing which seemed to be effected by the music was the awakening of +Fenton from his gloomy reverie. He began to talk in his most +extravagant and whimsical style, answering every question instantly, if +with no especial care concerning the relevancy of his replies. + +"What nonsense it is," he exclaimed, "to talk of any man's originating +any thing. Why, when even Adam couldn't be made without material, what +are we, his descendants, that we should hope to create? The authors of +this old wisdom that we revamp to-day copied somebody further back, and +those in turn put down what the masses felt; collected the foam which +gathered on the yeasty waves of their age. Every truth comes to the +people first if they could only recognize it when it comes. It is +evolved by the friction of the masses, just as a fire is set by the +rubbing together of tree-boughs in primeval forests, and the dusky +redman incontinently roasted in his uncontaminated innocence. The +longer I live the less faith I have that a man evolves any thing from +his inner consciousness. Fancies are only the lies of the mendacious +brain, which perceives one thing and declares to us another." + +"Go slow, Fenton," interrupted Herman, "you know our poor wits are apt +to be dazzled by too much brilliancy." + +"The age," Fenton rattled on, "blooms once into a great man as an aloe +into a crown of bloom." + +"Right in there," broke in Rangely, who longed for a share in the +conversation, "just consider how necessary it is that every art +producer shall be in sympathy with the human life about him. That he +should take the best wherever it is to be found. There's a miserable +sentiment about shutting one's self up in some dark corner, and +producing some tremendous thing. Don't you know how many New York and +Boston artists have gone to Europe and hermetically sealed themselves +up somewhere to ferment into greatness like a jug of cider turning into +vinegar in a farmer's cellar?" + +"That's what made Hunt such a big fellow," Herman interposed; "because +he took the good wherever it offered." + +"But that depends upon whether a man goes direct to Nature for +inspiration," declared Fenton, "or sets himself to get a living by +filching the good things his neighbors have won from her." + +"Hunt did go to nature; that is just where he was great." + +"I think," said Fred, laughingly, "that you will appreciate the mood in +which I once wrote a preface. I planned a great metaphysical and +philosophical work--I was a good deal younger than I am now--and the +preface was to be, 'As to the originality of these ideas, I have +nothing more to say than that I do not remember that they have ever +been printed with my name on the title-page.' Of course, after that +declaration, I felt at liberty to take any thing I wanted from any +where; but, unluckily, my book never got beyond the preface." + +"I'm glad you had the sense to stop there," declared Arthur. "I forgive +the preface, but I could never have forgiven the book." + +Helen rose from her seat at the piano and turned up the gas a little. +The effect for which the light had been lowered was secured, and it was +better, she recognized, to give to her singing a certain isolation, +which must be done before the conversation became so general that the +change from gloom to light would not be noticed. + +She wore that evening a gray silk with black lace, a slight turning +away showing the whiteness of her beautiful throat. Her jewels were +cats'-eyes. + +"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the +Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, +watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker. + +"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess +of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the +sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is +deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being +the true author of _'Sartor Resartus.'_" + +"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I +do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to +pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old +humbug! He was the sham _par excellence_ of the nineteenth +century, this century of shams." + +"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated +Herman, "even in shams." + +"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous +egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is +something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a +relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass +of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real +sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you +recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting +up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will +often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one? +that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the +letter?" + +"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly. +"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere." + +"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess +of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to +Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth +agreeably and effectively told. _Vive la fausseté!_" + +"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own +light," Herman observed, a little grimly. + +He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter, +apparently, did not feel the thrust. + +"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine +Pagan." + +"You are wrong in your idea," was Fenton's swift reply. "A true Pagan +must have a belief in some god to take from his shoulders the burden of +personal responsibility, or he cannot be joyous as a Pagan should. +However, to-night I make myself believe that I believe something, so it +comes to much the same thing." + +Helen turned and looked at him, attracted by some subtle quality in his +voice. + +He was sitting sidewise in his chair, holding an ivory paper-knife in +his slender fingers. His cheeks burned, his eyes were bright, his lips +red. He had shaken off the depression which oppressed him earlier in +the evening. An air of joyous, quivering excitement pervaded him. He +threw up his head with a characteristic gesture, and looked about him +like one who has conquered in some desperate conflict. + +"Come," the hostess said, wondering in what inward struggle he had come +off victor; "you promised to assist me with the coffee. I make no boast +of my house or my hospitality, gentlemen," she added, with a charming +glance around, "but I warn you in advance that not to admire my coffee +is to lose my friendship forever." + +In answer to her ring, a servant brought in a small mortar and a pretty +little bowl of whole coffee, delicately browned, and scarcely cold from +its roasting. Arthur, who seemed acquainted with Mrs. Greyson's methods +of procedure, began to pound the berries, roasted to perfect crispness, +in the ebony mortar, reducing them to an almost impalpable powder, +which diffused upon the air the entrancing odor dear to the nostrils of +all artists. + +The servant meantime had provided tiny cups, a little copper ibrik and +an alcohol lamp over which simmered a vessel of boiling water. + +"Coffee should be prepared only over coals of perfumed wood," Helen +remarked as she measured into the ibrik the small spoonful of coffee +dust designed for a single cup. "But alcohol is the next best thing, it +burns with such a supernatural flame." + +She put into the ibrik a measure of boiling water, rested it an instant +over the flame to restore the heat lost in the cooler copper, and then +poured the beverage into the egg-shell cup destined for it. + +"To my master first," she said, presenting the steaming cup to Herman, +who received it much as one might a gift from the skies. "I learned my +coffee making," she continued, "from an old Arab at Cairo, who used to +say that it was one of the only two things in life worth doing, the +other being the duties of religion; and it therefore should be +perfectly done." + +"It is simply divine," the sculptor said. "I have never really tasted +coffee before. Only if it is made like this your Arab might have said +there was but one thing in life, for this becomes a religious duty." +One by one with equal care were prepared cups for the others, who were +neither slow nor perfunctory in their endorsement of the sculptor's +praise. + + + + +XIV. + +THIS IS NOT A BOON. + Othello; iii.--3. + + + "'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow;'" + +Hummed Grant Herman to himself, taking his lonely way down the dim and +dingy streets leading to the wharves where he had his abode: + + "'I strew these opiate flowers--' + +Oh, what a woman she is! She might be Brunhilde, or she might be Burd +Helen; + + 'I strew these--' + +I wonder what she had to say to Fenton that she made him stay. Confound +that fellow! I'm not more than half sure that I'm fond of him; though I +can't bring myself fairly and squarely to dislike him. But I wish he +didn't know Mrs. Greyson quite so well; he's going to be married, too. +I wonder how he came to know her, any how. It is strange she doesn't +wear black if she is a widow. I'd like to learn something more definite +about her, but Fenton's the only one who would be likely to know, and I +certainly will not ask him. I suppose he is there yet, lounging in some +sort of an outlandish shape." + +Arthur was indeed still in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an +attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of +himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been +suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual +difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching +Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying the room a little. + +"We have been too good friends," she said, "to say good-by in public. +The old days have been pleasant, and it is hard to give them up." + +"You have insisted upon it that they are gone forever," he returned, +"until I almost begin to believe you. But it is no matter. _Che sarà +sarà_." + +"Yes; _che sarà sarà_," she echoed. "But now are you willing to do +me a favor? I haven't asked many of you." + +"You certainly deserve that I should say yes without a quibble," +replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the +risk; so I will merely answer,--I would like to do you a favor if I +may." + +She came and sat down near him, a beautiful woman, flushed and tender. +It arose perhaps from the delicate sensitiveness of both that they had +always instinctively avoided those chance contacts which between lovers +become so significant, confining themselves to rare hand-shakes at +meeting and parting; and it may be that their very scrupulousness in +this matter proves how near they had been to more emotional relations +than those of simple friendship. Now when Helen laid her hand upon her +friend's arm it marked an earnestness which showed how much she felt +what she was about to say. + +"I want you to give me something that Will gave you the other day." + +Fenton's first feeling was one of annoyance, but this was quickly +replaced by a desire to fathom the motives which prompted her request. + +"How did you know of it?" he asked. + +"By divination," she answered, with a faint smile. "Will you give it to +me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Because I ask you." + +"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?" + +"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that +in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss +Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may +lead you to--to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy +with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a +right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman +with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of +deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours. +You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy." + +"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a +tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen, +it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that +vial. It is all like a scene in _The City of Dreadful Night_. I +cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness. +Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very +strong reasons to suppose that any body else will." + +"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a +wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow +the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is +true." + +"But she will not know." + +"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to +discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to +conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the +slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any +friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial." + +He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his +arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of +those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged +in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to +appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating +pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely. + +"But what would you do with it, Helen?" + +She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought +that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift +oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been +conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in +Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish +her purpose. + +"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want +you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my +word that I will never use it myself." + +He still made no movement to surrender the vial, but she held out her +hand. + +"Come," she pleaded. "I appeal to your best self. For the sake of your +mother, Arthur,--you have told me you could refuse her nothing she +asked, and she would surely ask this if she were alive and knew. Give +it to me." + +He slowly drew from some inner pocket the little morocco case and held +it in both hands looking at it. + +"It is a comfort to me," he said. "It means an end of every thing. It +means annihilation; it means getting rid of this nightmare of +existence. I can remember when I dreaded the idea of annihilation, but +I have come to feel that it is the only good to be desired. To be done +with every thing and to forget every thing! Don't you see, Helen; I +should never be satisfied with any thing short of omnipotence and +omniscience, and annihilation is the only refuge for a nature like +that. I want to be everything; to feel the joy of the conqueror and yet +not miss the keen, fine pang of the conquered--Lowell says it +somewhere; to be + + 'Both maiden and lover'-- + +I forget it--'bee and clover, you know; to be the 'red slayer' and 'the +slain' both. Do you wonder I want to keep this?" + +A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness came over Helen. Only half +consciously she spoke a thought aloud: + +"You are half mad from introspection." + +He turned upon her a quizzical smile. + +"I dare say," said he. "It isn't a comfortable process either. If a man +has lived twenty-five years, Helen, and has not so entangled his life +in a web of circumstances that no power will ever be able to +extricate it, he may consider his first quarter century of existence a +success." + +He spoke with a bitter good humor not uncommon with him, and he +believed himself sincere. He even mentally applauded himself for the +justness of the sentiment, and was not untouched with pity for a being +in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret +complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of +relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case. +Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and +she drew the dangerous gift out of his fingers. + +She sprang up and locked it away in a cabinet. + +"There!" she exclaimed, standing before him in a sudden revulsion of +feeling, her face flushed and her eyes shining. "Now I will tell you +what I think of you. I think you mean to be good to others, but--" + +"You always think better of me than I deserve," he interrupted; "at +least you treat me better." + +"That does not necessarily indicate any leniency of judgment," retorted +Helen. "I think you are self-centered, and morbid; and if marriage +doesn't reform you, I give you up, for nothing will. Suffering is only +an effect, the cause is sensibility; and you keep yourself abnormally +sensitive by having yourself always upon the vivisection table." + +She turned and walked away from him. Her emotion was getting beyond her +control. Her friendships were keen with the intensity of her passionate +nature; she had not passed through this struggle lightly, and perhaps +the victory unnerved her more than defeat would have done. On his part +he endeavored to turn every thing off as usual with a jest. + +"Have I told you Bently's latest?" he began. "He--" + +"It is of no use," she said, returning to him, tears overflowing her +eyes. "You cannot help my making a spectacle of myself; and you had +better go. Oh, Arthur, I hope so much for you; I do so hope for +happiness coming to you out of this marriage; but I shall be so +lonely." + +Her voice broke despite her effort. She came nearer, she hesitated an +instant; then she bent over and kissed his forehead. A hot tear +splashed upon his hand. + +"There," she said. "Good night, and good-by. When you come back you +will see what a fine steady old lady I have become." + +He got on to his feet, confused, troubled, pitying her profoundly and +commiserating himself upon the awkwardness of the situation. He tried +to frame some sentence which might bridge the distance that seemed +suddenly to have opened between them. Like a farewell, a renunciation +or a dedication, that kiss impressed upon him a certain remoteness new +and oppressive. + +"Bah!" he broke off. "I can say nothing, Helen. I have thus far served +in an already sufficiently unhappy world only to make people more +miserable still. I'm not worth a faintest regret. Good-night. If I can +ever serve you--Good-by!" + + + + +XV. + +'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL. + Othello; i--3. + + +Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss, +which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and +realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his +companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt +them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not +spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being +much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been +the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had +believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning +her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard +for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love. +She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of +a blighted passion. + +She sighed deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's +disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her +work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze +her energies and enervate her whole being. + +The gown which she had worn upon the previous evening lay over a chair, +giving out, as she lifted it, an odor of tobacco smoke. Some remark +made by Grant Herman about the fumes which had filled the little parlor +came into her mind, giving a new current to her thoughts. She +unconsciously fell to thinking of the sculptor, and, by a natural +connection of ideas, of Ninitta, who was still nominally posing for +her. + +Partly from interest in the girl herself and partly from the perception +that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had +retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the +model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive +ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, +not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so +strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so +sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her +hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning +kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although Ninitta was +perhaps scarcely to be reckoned among these extremists, she yet found +so much comfort in pouring out her sorrows to one who could both +sympathize and appreciate, that little by little the whole pathetic +tale was told. + +"I did not understand," Ninitta said once in her broken English, "when +he left Rome. It was as if somebody had taken my life away somehow. I +couldn't make it seem that I was really alive all the same, though I +knew it could not be his fault. He would not have done it if he had +known. You do not believe he would have left me if he had known the +truth?" + +"No," Helen answered. "He could not have left you if he had known. It +was because he was hurt so much, and that could only be because he +loved you so much." + +"He loved me so much," poor Ninitta repeated murmuringly, "he loved me +so much." + +And all that day she followed Helen with wistful eyes, as if she longed +to hear her say again those precious words. + +"I cannot tell you what it was like in Paris," she said at another +time. "In Rome they all knew me. They knew I was betrothed, and no one +ever troubled me. But in Paris it was different. Oh, I hate Paris! And +it was so cruel that he was not there. It was so dreadful that he +should be on the other side of that horrible sea!" + +The girl was so self-forgetful in these revelations, she spoke always +with such an unshaken faith in Herman and was so free from any thought +of blaming him, that Helen could not but be touched. She soothed poor +Ninitta as well as she was able, having power to promise nothing, +seeing no way out of the entanglement, yet at least showing to the +lonely Italian that her woman's heart bled for her sorrow if she might +not alleviate it. Sometimes she felt like going to the sculptor and +entreating him to take pity upon the girl who so adoringly loved him. +Once when the model had told her how just as she had saved by long, +painful economy, nearly money enough to pay the passage to America it +was stolen and she was forced to begin the slow process over again, +Helen impulsively left her studio and found herself on the very +threshold of Herman's door before she realized what she had been about +to do. By what authority was she to interfere in a matter like this? If +Ninitta loved the sculptor who had long ago ceased to return her +affection, could matters be helped by an unloving marriage? It was not +for her, moreover, to give unasked her advice to such a man as she knew +Grant Herman to be. If he consulted her, she reflected, she might +present the pathetic, touching story which Ninitta had told her, but +she had plainly no pretext for forcing her feelings upon her master +unsought. + +She turned and went slowly up the stairs toward her little room; but +suddenly she paused. She had all at once become conscious that she +desired eagerly to know the nature of the sculptor's feelings toward +his old love. Why, she asked herself, was she so interested in what +after all did not personally concern her. A quick emotion, almost too +vague to be called a thought, made her cheek flame. + +"No, no," she said half aloud. "It is only that I am touched by +Ninitta's sadness. It is nothing more." + +But her breath came more quickly, and it was with difficulty that upon +re-entering her studio she assumed a quiet mien, lest her model should +guess at her unfulfilled errand. + +On the morning following the meeting of the Pagans at her rooms, Helen +was alone in her studio. She had told Ninitta she should be late and +the latter was therefore tardy in arriving. Mrs. Greyson uncovered her +bas-relief, now rapidly nearing completion, and stood before it, +examining critically its merits and defects. A familiar step in the +passage, a tap at the door, and Grant Herman joined her. + +"You look as fresh as ever this morning," he said. "I feared that the +entertaining of such a company of Bohemians would have tired you out." + +"No, indeed," she returned. "I am of far too much endurance to be worn +out by any thing of that sort. I have a drop of Bohemian blood in my +veins myself, I think, and I like to meet men as men--when they are +simply good fellows together, I mean. A woman usually sees men in an +attitude of either deference or defense, and there is something +inspiriting to her in being occasionally received as a comrade." + +"There are few women who can be received so," returned Herman. "I +suppose it requires both an especial temperament and especial +experiences to render a woman capable of being a comrade to men." + +The talk drifted away to general and indifferent subjects, broken here +and there by allusions and criticisms relating to the Flight of the +Months, and not infrequently dropping into brief silences. One of these +Herman broke by saying abruptly: + +"You do not know how your song has haunted me all night. I have been +saying over and over to myself + + 'I strew these opiate flowers + On thy restless pillow.' + +And, indeed, I longed for some such soporific myself before morning. +Your coffee or your song, or--yourself,"--he hesitated over the last +word--kept me very effectually awake." + +"It must have been the coffee; there was little potency in either of +the other causes." + +"There is much," he returned resolutely, advancing a step nearer. "Mrs. +Greyson, I have not wasted the night. I have thought out a great many +things; the first and chief being in regard to yourself." + +His tone, the piercing glow of his eyes, warned Helen what was coming. +She thought of Ninitta, and retreated a step. + +"It is true," the sculptor continued, as if answering the doubt implied +by her movement, "that I--" + +The door opened softly and Ninitta came in. + +His outstretched hand dropped; the words died upon his lips. He turned +from one woman to the other an appealing look of hopeless sadness and +left the studio in silence. + +It was characteristic of Helen's generosity that her first thought +should be of the pain which Ninitta must feel. One glance at the model +was sufficient to show that the Italian had comprehended enough of the +interrupted scene to be made wretched; but it did not then occur to +Mrs. Greyson that to Ninitta's jealous soul, unsuspicious of Herman, +the only explanation of a fondness between the sculptor and his pupil +lay in an effort on the part of the latter to win from the model her +rightful and long betrothed lover. + + + + +XVI. + +CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH. + As You Like It; i.--2. + + +Grant Herman sat in his studio in the gathering twilight thinking +gloomily. However little Mrs. Greyson suspected the tumult which would +be aroused in Ninitta's breast by the misadventure of the morning, the +sculptor was too well aware of the Italian's passionate nature not to +dread the consequences of the jealousy she was sure to feel. He knew, +moreover, that Ninitta's rage would vent itself not upon him but upon +Helen, and he wondered how best to avert the danger that threatened. + +He debated with himself, too, how much he owed to the girl who gave her +life up so unreservedly to him. His old love--"call it rather mere +boyish passion," he-thought scornfully--was long since dead beyond +hope; yet the devotion which it had awakened in Ninitta burned on as +steadily as ever. Had he now a right to repulse the love he had himself +called into being; to throw aside the fondness he had himself fostered +and which he had once prized above measure. + +"No," he thought, "a thousand times no. A man must be a villain who +would not marry a girl under such circumstances. I am hers; the fact +that I have changed is my misfortune, not her fault. If I have any +manliness about me, I won't let things go on in this way any longer. +I'll marry Ninitta. It is the smallest reparation I can make for the +long years of pain I have caused her. There is no other course for me. + +"But I do not love her, and a woman, they say, always instinctively +feels it when a man's heart is not hers. Nonsense! That is only a +cowardly excuse. At least Ninitta would never be troubled. She has not +known so much love that she can draw very sharp comparisons. No; she +will be satisfied; and I--well, if a man is such a devilish fool as I +have been, it remains for him to pay the penalty. Oh, if youth only +knew!" + +He sighed deeply and began to walk up and down the studio, in which the +dusk was gathering thickly. A last faint gleam from a window high in +the riverward wall fell upon one of the mutilated goddesses in the +gallery. Herman looked up, contemplating the phantom-like head +gloomily. Something in its pose, or perhaps more truly something in his +own mind, suggested a faint likeness to Helen, as if it were her ghost +looking down from some far height upon the conflict of his soul. + +"Ah!" he cried hotly to himself. "And she? How can I give up the hope +of winning her? What was a boy's foolish fancy to the passion of a +man--and for such a woman! She is half goddess. No, no; I cannot do it. +I cannot marry this Italian peasant, this model that has who knows what +history! I will not; I owe something to myself, to my art. What is the +simple happiness of Ninitta to my art? I should be a fool to ignore how +much more to the world my own well-being is worth than is hers; and +what could I not do with the inspiration of the other! Oh, my God!" + +The darkness grew. The phantom faded imperceptibly away. He was left +alone in the darkness to fight out his battle. He marched with great +strides, avoiding obstacles by a certain sixth sense born of constant +familiarity with the place. He fought manfully, persuading himself that +his scruples were as idle as air, remnants of the long since outgrown +superstitions of his childhood. He defiantly claimed the right to be +true to his powers, to his genius, rather than to an empirical standard +erected by narrow moralists. He should be thankful that he had escaped +entangling his life by that absurd marriage in Rome seven years ago, +and that he was now free to win a wife worthy Of himself and of his +art. + +Yet he cut through all the meshes of logic he had himself been weaving, +by striking his strong hands together there in the dark, and crying +aloud, his voice startling him in the stillness: + +"My God! What a poltroon I have become! Shall I cast on others the +burden of my own mistakes?" + +And seizing hat and cloak he left the studio, taking his way towards +the narrow street where Ninitta lodged, hastening to ask her to marry +him before his resolution faltered. + + + + +XVII. + +THIS "WOULD" CHANGES. + Hamlet; iv.--7. + + +Herman found Ninitta alone in the attic which served her for a home in +this bleak northern city, so far and so different from her own sunny +Capri. + +Bare and half furnished as was the room, the girl had contrived to +impart to it a certain air which removed it from the common-place. A +bit of flimsy drapery, begged from some studio, hung over one of the +windows; a rude print of the Madonna was pinned to the wall, and under +it, on the wooden table, was a bunch of withered flowers. They were +roses which Helen had given Ninitta, and the Italian, returning home +that day, had in her jealous rage thrown them to the floor and trampled +upon them. Then remembering that they had been offered to the Madonna, +she had been seized with a superstitious fear, and carefully restoring +the battered flowers, had eagerly vowed a fresh bunch to the Holy +Mother if she might be forgiven this sacrilege. + +But the most beautiful article in the room was a cast of a woman's +shoulder. It had been modeled by Herman in the earliest days of his +acquaintance with Ninitta, when she had been still only his model and +not his betrothed. He was touched as he looked at it now. Yellow with +time and soiled by its various journeyings, it still preserved unmarred +its lovely shape, exquisite curve melting into exquisite curve as +softly and sweetly as in those glowing days when he had molded it under +the sky of Italy. + +He looked from the cast to Ninitta. He had only seen her at the studio, +and he experienced a faint feeling of surprise at detecting a subtle +difference in her here at home. It was nothing so tangible that he +could have told by what means he received the impression, yet it was +sufficiently definite to make him lose something of the freedom with +which he had always addressed her. She was no longer simply the model, +she was an Italian woman in her own home. + +The years during which they had been separated had formed and +strengthened Ninitta's character. If Herman had not before noted the +alteration, it was due in part to his pre-occupation and in part to the +force of old habit which made her manner toward him much the same as +formerly. To-night he began to appreciate the change in her, and he +felt the awkwardness which always results from the discovery that we +must adapt ourselves to a modified condition in a friend. + +On her side Ninitta was naturally surprised at seeing the sculptor. She +had come to regard as hopeless all speculations upon his intentions, +and she had waited patiently until he should choose to show her favor, +tacitly acknowledging his right to do whatever should be his good +pleasure. Had he come at any time and said, "Ninitta, I am here to +marry you," she would gladly but quietly have made ready to follow +where he chose to lead, even to the world's end. Equally, had he said, +"Ninitta, I have come to say good-by; you will never see me again," she +would have acquiesced without a murmur, and then, perhaps, have taken +her own life. As long as it was his simple wish, uninfluenced by the +will of another, she would never have questioned. + +Now, however, all passive acquiescence was at an end. Since the scene +in Helen's studio, Ninitta had an object upon which to expend all her +energies, and she even almost forgot to love Herman in the intensity of +her sudden jealous hatred of Mrs. Greyson. Yesterday Grant Herman would +have found a woman not unlike the Ninitta of old times, tender, loving, +pathetically submissive; today he was confronted by a fury, only +restrained by the respect for his presence born of long habit. + +"Good evening!" he said gently, as he entered, his mood softened by the +struggle through which he had passed in his studio. + +"Good evening!" she answered defiantly, in Italian. "So you are not +with her!" + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +He had been wholly unprepared for this outburst, and for the instant +was too surprised to at all understand it. + +A sudden rage seemed to seize Ninitta, which swept away all barriers of +restraint. + +"_Si_, _si_, _si_," she cried, "I am not blind! What if +you are my betrothed, when this woman comes to entrap you, to bewitch +you with an evil eye, to steal your soul! Yes, yes; you are not with +her to-night as you were last night. Did I not see you myself come out +of her house?" + +"Stop!" he said in his most commanding tone, but without anger. + +The calmness and decision of the manner arrested her. She sank back +into a chair, regarding him with defiant eyes. + +"So you have followed me," continued Herman, speaking with painful +slowness, so that every word seemed to poor Ninitta to fall upon her +like a curse; "so you have played the spy upon me. Ah!" + +As he looked at her she began to cower. She shrank back in her seat, +putting up her hands to shield her face from his gaze. + +"Yet I meant to marry you," he said, half to himself, although still +addressing her. "I came to-night to say, 'Come, Ninitta, let us take up +the broken romance that a cruel mistake interrupted there in Rome.' I +had long ago outgrown my old fancy, but I meant to be true to my +promise to you. I meant to give up even my ambition for your sake; to +make your life happy and secure. And this is your trust in me! If you +really loved me, to track me like a thief would have been impossible to +you. And where have you learned this trick of playing the spy?" he went +on with growing wrath, becoming more and more cruel with every word. +"It is a relic of your Paris life, I fancy. It is hardly a resource to +which a good girl would be driven. I at least believed you when you +told me you had been true to me." + +He spoke rapidly, aggressively. The fact that he was outraging his own +instincts in beating with bitter words the girl who bowed before him +with drooping head and disheveled hair made him but the more harsh. To +fall from the height of self-sacrifice into a pool of vulgar intrigue! +Bah! His disgust at himself for ever having known this woman seemed too +great to be borne. + +Yet under all his passionate protest and repulsion he was conscious +that he doubted what he was himself saying with so much vehemence; that +he secretly believed Ninitta to be true and pure, and that to her +Italian blood, to her peasant nurture, was due the espionage in which +she had been self-betrayed. The sting of conscience, too, in the +knowledge that the model's jealousy of Helen was well founded, the +humiliation of finding his feelings and motives discovered, increased +his irritation. He felt a base desire to stab and humiliate Ninitta, +but for whom he might be free to win the one woman he had ever loved; +and the more his denunciations recoiled to hurt himself, the more +eagerly he poured them out, as in some moods of mental anguish one +finds relief in the pain of self-inflicted physical hurts. + +"Yes," he said, more and more completely abandoning control of himself; +"yes, this tells sufficiently what you have learned in Paris." + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and groveling +there. "No, no! For the love of the Virgin, signor, not that! I have +been good. Oh, for the love of God, signor! For the love of God!" + +She was shaken by the storm of sobs in which her words ended. She got +hold of his feet and refused to rise when he attempted to lift her. Her +long hair, escaped from its stilletto, fell about her face. Even in +this agitated moment the sculptor in Grant Herman noted with a sharp, +aesthetic pleasure the beautiful curves of her neck and shoulders. + +"Pity," she went on between her agonized sobs. "Oh, forgive me! I will +do any thing you wish. I will go away and leave you." + +He stooped and raised her by main force, yet tenderly. + +"There, there, Ninitta," he said, "I was wrong. I do believe you are a +good girl; but you should not have played the spy." + +He soothed her as well as he was able, her violence spending itself in +passionate tears. She drew herself away from him, and sat down again in +the chair she had been occupying. She put up her hands to her head, +twisting the loose tresses into a great coil. The sleeve of her dress, +unfastened in her agitation, fell back from her rounded arm. The superb +lines of her figure were displayed by her attitude. Her face, flushed +with weeping and lighted by the still tear-wet eyes, if not beautiful, +was appealing and pitiful. Some fiber touched of old vibrated anew in +his being. He made a step forward. + +"Ninitta," he said, "I came to-night to ask you to marry me at once; to +fulfill the promise I made you so long ago." + +The words and the tone both were tender, but he had said those same +words in anger just before. + +"But you do not love me," she responded, her arms dropping pathetically +into her lap. "You have said it." + +"But I was angry," answered Herman, for the moment almost believing +that his old love was re-awakened. "I did not mean you to believe it." + +"If you do love me," she said, a new look coming into her eyes, "you +will promise me never to see her again." + +He started back as if from a blow. His frail dream of passion was +shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt +that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged +into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush and her eye kindled. + +"Promise me," she repeated. "It is little for love to ask. It is my +right." + +With instinctive feminine guile she leaned towards him in an attitude +so beautiful, so appealing that even now he was moved. But with this +emotion came, too, a subtle if now fainter sense of degradation that he +was susceptible to this dangerous fascination, with a painful +consciousness of how wide a moral gulf had opened between them by the +anger and vulgar jealousy which Ninitta displayed. It is not +impossible, too, that his instinctive clinging to Helen was a stronger +power than he knew; while still through all his mingled emotions ran +the resolve he had made to give himself up to his old betrothed. + +"No," he said; yet as he moved slowly towards the door he had the air +of a man who still deliberates. + +She threw herself back in her seat with a touching gesture of despair, +but also with a gleam of malice in her eyes, which he, turning with his +hand upon the latch, caught and understood. + +"No," he repeated with final decision. "No, no!" + + + + +XVIII. + +BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE. + Love's Labor's Lost; ii.--I. + + +Fenton had returned to Boston with his bride, but as yet Helen had not +seen him. One morning late in March, however, he came to call. + +"I could not come before," he said after the first greeting, "'I have +married a wife,' and the amount of arrangement and adjustment implied +in that statement is simply astounding." + +"I am glad to see you at last," she returned. "And your wife, is she +well?" + +"My wife," replied he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar +term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful +reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith +in a different way from the crowd." + +Helen crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair by the +window. + +"He ought to understand," was her thought. "Why cannot he see that it +is impossible for his wife and me to harmonize. We have no common +ground." + +"I shall be glad to," she said aloud, inwardly shrinking at the need of +speaking disingenuously to one with whom she had so long been upon +terms of frankness. "I will come very soon; to-day or to-morrow. +To-day, though, I must go and see my bas-relief. It is all ready to be +cut for the furnace; I only want to take a last look at it, to be sure +that every thing is right. If it will not bore you," she added, a +little hesitatingly, "you might come too; it is your last chance to +find fault to any advantage, for any changes must be made at once." + +"I'd like to go," answered her friend, looking at his watch, "if I can +get back to luncheon. Yes, there's plenty of time." + +"Benedick, the married man," laughed Helen. "That I should ever live to +see this air of domesticity!" + +They crossed the Common, chatting idly, and both conscious that the +frankness of their old intercourse was somehow lacking; that it was +necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the +former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred +during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of +amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations +which no longer had real existence. + +"Oh, Arthur," Helen laughed, suddenly, "let's not go on in this way! +Let us quarrel, or something. Say a wicked epigram; do any thing, +only don't be so eminently amiable!" + +"My head is as empty of ideas," he returned laughing, in his turn, "as +is a modern title-page of punctuation points. Besides, Edith has +forbidden wicked epigrams." + +"Does she therefore suppose she can suppress them?" + +"Oh, I don't know," responded Fenton, good-humoredly. "I am not in as +epigrammatic a frame of mind as I was." + +"'Tis a good sign." + +"Yes; a sign I am growing inane and respectable." + +"I can imagine you one about as easily as the other." + +"That is bitter-sweet; a compliment and a flout." + +"If I had said that," Helen observed, smiling, "you would have +retorted, with a look of gloomy solemnity, that most things in life are +bitter-sweet; unless, indeed, you felt called upon to phrase it that it +had the advantage of most earthly matters by not being wholly bitter." + +"Was I ever guilty of such commonplace attempts at epigrams as that?" +returned Arthur. "If so it is certainly a good thing that I have given +up repartee for matrimony." + +"Oh, that is brilliant beside many of your attempts, I assure you. And +as for your giving them up--I reserve my decision." + +"You shall see, skeptic," he said lightly. "I expect to change the face +of the whole world if necessary." + +"It is a common error of ardent temperaments," she returned pleasantly, +but with evident sincerity, "to assume that a state of feeling can +change the world." + +"But I must, I will," he began eagerly. Then the light died out of his +face and he ended with a shrug. + +Helen put up her hand with an impulsive gesture, as if about to speak. + +Then letting her arms fall by her side, she turned to unlock the studio +door, which by this time they had reached. + +The bas-relief was still shrouded in its damp envelopes, which Helen +carefully removed, keeping Fenton away, that he might first see the +work as a whole, and not lose its legitimate effect by catching +fragmentary glimpses as it was uncovered. When at last it was fully +disclosed, she called him to her as she stood before it. + +"By Jove! That's stunning!" he exclaimed, after an instant's pause, +which gave him time to see it fairly. "Helen, you have outdone +yourself! That figure is simply superb. I hadn't an idea you would come +out so well. I'm wonderfully proud of you." + +"You are more amiable than ever," she responded; but her flushed cheek +showed that she was touched by his earnest praise. "For that figure I +have to thank Ninitta's posing. She is an inspiration." + +"But Ninitta did not inspire that splendid head," observed Arthur, +pointing with his cane at the December, "and you evidently did that +_con amore_. By Jove! It's Grant Herman, as I live!" + +As he spoke he turned and saw Ninitta on the threshold. + +"Shall you want me to-day?" the latter asked of Helen. + +"What made that girl look so savage?" Fenton questioned as the door +closed behind the model. + +"She perhaps chooses to be jealous of me," Helen replied composedly. + +"_Elle a peutêtre raison_." + +"Perhaps." + +"You say that too calmly by half," was his gay response. "Yet as every +work a woman does has a man for its end--I learned that from the +classics; Penelope, you know, and even washwoman Nausicaä--I suppose it +is fair to assume this had. Only who is the man?" + +Helen flushed slightly. She recalled the ambition with which she had +begun this work, to make the man beside her praise its completion; and +she was conscious that before she finished it was the praise of Herman +for which she strove. + +"It is filthy lucre that inspires me," she replied steadily. "I need no +other incentive." + +They walked about the studio, talking of the bas-relief as seen from +different points; of how it was to be cut for firing; and on the safe +ground of art they forgot all personal constraints, until the striking +of a clock aroused Fenton to a sense of the flight of time. + +"I must go," he said. "I am no end glad I came. The truth is I am not +very well acquainted with this married man, and it is comfortable to +slip back occasionally into a familiar bachelor mood. However," he +continued with his brightest smile, "I like the Benedick far better +than I should ever have dreamed possible; and his wife is charming. And +I want to say, too," he added, "that I have a thousand times thanked +you for taking that vial before I went to be married. I'm in a spasm of +virtuousness just now, and it is pleasant to remember that I did not +have it that day." + +They went down stairs and out into the soft, spring-like day, +sauntering homeward in a happy and accordant mood. Arthur urged Helen's +going home to lunch with himself and Edith, but to Helen the morning +was far too precious to be ended in a possibly inharmonious meeting +with Mrs. Fenton. + +And that afternoon Herman sent for Mrs. Greyson in all haste. Ninitta +had vented her jealous rage upon the bas-relief, destroying the head of +December which she heard Fenton say must have been done _con +amore_, and the beautiful May for which she herself had posed. + + + + +XIX. + +NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS. + Romeo and Juliet; ii.--4. + + +Mrs. Fenton's wedding reception was largely attended. However strongly +the artist might savor of Bohemianism, his wife was connected with +certain prominent Philistines, and he had exhibited a most remarkable +readiness to have them present in force. + +"Into the camp of Philistia itself," muttered Rangely to Bently, as +they elbowed their way through the crowd. "By the great horn spoon, if +there isn't Peter Calvin! Arthur calls him the Great Boston Art Greek. +That ever I should live to see the humbug under Fenton's roof-tree!" + +"Pshaw!" returned Bently with an oath. "What a set of rubbishy old fobs +and dowagers there is here anyway. Is this the kind of people Fenton +means to know?" + +"Means to know," echoed Rangely. "He's got to go down on his marrow +bones to get them to consent to know him. They patronize art, and that +means that they snub artists." + +"Humph!" exclaimed Bently. "Is he sycophant enough to do that?" + +"That's as you look at it. His wife probably decides the matter for +him. She very naturally likes to know what she would call 'nice +people.' How those women chatter! I wonder what they find to talk +about." + +"Not necessarily any thing. They always talk all the same whether +they've any thing to say or not." + +"How much of life is wasted in enduring people for whom one does not +care," philosophized Rangely, looking over the throng which filled to +overflowing the Fentons' somewhat limited rooms. "Ah! There is Dr. +Ashton. How do you do, Doctor?" + +"As well as could be expected," the Doctor answered, "in this +antiquated assembly." + +"Oh, Boston is only an antiquarian society," laughed Rangely, "and +these old tabbies are all honorary members. By Jove, though, there are +some awfully pretty girls here." + +"I've observed that Boston girls are apt to be pretty when they give +their minds to it," remarked Bently. "Not when they wander round with +Homer under one arm and Virgil under the other and dyspepsia in the +stomach, but when they are deliberately frivolous." + +The throng separated them at this moment, and Dr. Ashton went in search +of host and hostess. Arthur caught sight of his tall figure, and made a +sign at once of recognition and summons. Struggling between a young +Episcopal clergyman and a corpulent old lady, Dr. Ashton made his way +with difficulty to the spot where his friend was standing. + +"You are the most married man I know, Arthur," was his greeting. +"Brigham Young wasn't a circumstance. I have been half an hour crossing +the room." + +"Dr. Ashton, Edith; my wife, Will," was the only reply Fenton made, +unless one could interpret the quizzical glance he bestowed upon his +friend. + +"I feel already acquainted with you," was Mrs. Fenton's remark, "I have +heard of you so often. My husband has spoken to me so much of his +friends that it is hard for me to realize that I do not know them +myself." + +"You have been very little in Boston, I believe," Dr. Ashton said, +looking at her in a sudden surprise at remembering that he had seen her +face before. + +"Very little," replied she, "I have been abroad a great part of my life +and--" + +New claims upon her attention ended the conversation with that charming +abruptness characteristic of such an occasion, and the Doctor was left +to elbow his way out of the crush, with the sense of having done all +that would be required of him. He found a corner where he could watch +the hostess and fell to wondering whether Mrs. Fenton in her turn +remembered their previous meeting. + +Edith Fenton was a slender, nun-like woman, too pale, with a smile of +wonderful attractiveness. "A woman to wear lilies," was the way Grant +Herman put it afterward; a remark which conveyed well the purity of her +face. Her ease of manner showed familiarity with the conventionalities +of life, yet in some vague way she seemed removed from the people by +whom she was to-day surrounded. + +"She has been brought up in the old narrow ways," Dr. Ashton reflected, +"but there are great possibilities about her. She'll either be the +making of Fenton or send him to the dogs. She will scarcely find much +room in her house for many of his former friends, I fancy." + +He stood watching the people and amusing himself with cynical +speculations until he saw Grant Herman's great figure among the guests. +He knew him but slightly and looked at him with an indifference which a +couple of hours later he regretted. Herman cared little for the +formalities of the occasion, and very likely might have gone away +without even being presented to the hostess had not Fred Rangely taken +him in charge and brought him safely through that ceremony. Now the +sculptor was looking for Mrs. Greyson, of whom he soon caught sight, +when he began making his way towards her. She however perceived him, +and with the feeling that she could not bear to meet him in public just +at this time, she evaded him by slipping into the window where her +husband was ensconced. + +"Take me out of this, please," she said, "I am tired." + +He gave her his arm without speaking, and together they made their way +from the room. + +"I want to talk to you," he remarked easily. "Mayn't I walk home with +you?" + +When she was ready they went together out into the starlit streets. +Neither spoke at first, each carrying on a train of thought to which +the other could have no adequate clew. + +"Who is Arthur's wife?" Dr. Ashton asked at length. "I know she was a +Miss Caldwell, that she came from Providence, and that she has been an +orphan so short a time that they had a perfectly quiet wedding; but +that is the extent of my knowledge. Is she an artist?" + +"An amateur," answered Helen. "She studied in Paris. He met her there. +She is a relative, I forget just how far or near, of Peter Calvin. She +seems to me an icicle. Think of Arthur's marrying a _religieuse_!" + +"What is his game, I wonder," said her companion thoughtfully. "Do you +know when she was in Paris? Was it when we were there." + +"Let me see," Helen responded, with a mental calculation. "Yes; she +must have been there the last year we were. Why? Did you ever meet +her?" + +"Perhaps," was the careless reply. + +They reached Helen's door as he spoke. + +"Come in," she said. "Fortunately I can make you a salad. It is a long +time since we had a _petit souper_ together. I have, too, +something to say to you." + +He followed her to the pretty parlor, and sat idly chatting while she +made her preparations for the supper. + + + + +XX. + +THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED. + Merchant of Venice; iii.--2. + + +It was a dainty little table to which Helen invited her husband when +every thing was ready. The china was of odd bits picked up here and +there abroad, and it was now disposed with an artist's eye for color +and grouping. A tall bottle of Rhine wine had come from some mysterious +nook, and beside it were a pair of fine old German glasses, frail as +bubbles. + +"I have always to offer my guests Rhine wine," Helen said, "for I've no +glasses for any thing else. Arthur is ungracious enough to object. He +does not like white wine as you do." + +"I do like it," her guest answered, drawing the cork, "and so does +Arthur, only he does not know it. He has somewhere stumbled upon the +whim of pretending not to, and he can deceive himself more completely +than any other man I ever saw. Rhine wine is the most poetic of +beverages. It should go down like oil and only leave a fragrance like a +poet's dream behind it." + +"That is quite a rhapsody for you, Will; only your cool tone gives it a +certain cynical flavor." + +"I mean all I say, I assure you. Champagne is vulgar. It is the drink +of self-made snobs and cads who wish to pass for men of the world; but +Rhine wine is the drink for poets and artists." + +"I am delighted to hear you defend it; it is very good of you, when I +happen to know you are not fond of it. It is a graceful return for my +inhospitality in not giving you your favorite Burgundy, but I haven't a +drop." + +"Oh, don't mind the wine! I came to see you," Dr. Ashton said, with his +delightful smile. "How droll it was to see Arthur to-day. Do you think +he has really persuaded himself he is in love with his wife?" + +"Arthur has great adaptability," Helen returned. "I think he believes +he is in love. I'm sure I hope you'll not feel it your duty to tell him +he isn't." + +"I'm not Mephistopheles," answered Dr. Ashton, smiling, and watching +appreciatively as she made the salad. + +Mrs. Greyson had dressed carefully for the reception from which she had +just come, and her cream-colored cashmere, with soft old thread lace, +and a bunch of amber-hued roses at the throat, became her as only a +dress chosen by an artist could. It fell away from her exquisite arms, +and from among the lace rose her beautiful neck, the stuff of her gown +setting off the lovely texture of her skin to perfection. + +"I must not ruin my best attire," she said lightly, gathering it up. +"Now Ninitta has spoiled my bas-relief, it may be long before I get +more. I owe you a good deal, Will, for letting me study modeling in +Paris." + +"It was pure selfishness," he returned good-humoredly. "I wanted to +keep you busy so that I might go my own way. But what about your +bas-relief? Who spoiled it? Who is Ninitta, and what has she against +you?" + +"That is what I wanted to tell you." + +She did not speak again for a moment, seemingly intent upon the exact +measurement of the ingredients of her salad. In reality she was +considering how best to present what she had to say. She mentally ran +over the points she wished to make, becoming thereby conscious that she +had herself come to no definite conclusions upon the topic she was +about to discuss. She looked furtively at her husband, noting his +attitude, his expression, and whatever her past experience enabled her +to construe into indications of his mood. As well and as long as she +had known this man, she was still ignorant of the key to his nature-- +that feeling or motive which, touched in an ultimate appeal, would +always insure a response. Conscience is the fruit of the tree of +experience, and, taken in this sense, every man must be possessed of a +conscience, which by its inner voice re-enforces any pleading which +coincides with its dictates. What was the nature of her husband's +inward monitor Helen had never been able to discover and at this moment +she realized keenly her ignorance. + +"Will," she said earnestly, laying down her salad-fork and spoon, "I +think it is wrong for us to live as we do." + +He shrugged his shoulders, looking at her curiously. + +"I cannot flatter myself that you care to return to the old +uncomfortableness." + +She flushed warmly, with a keen pang of mingled pain and indignation. + +"No," she replied. "No; never that. It is not for ourselves, but for +others." + +"Others! Fenton?" + +She flushed more deeply still. + +"I have told you already that you are mistaken about my regard for +Arthur. It was not he I meant." + +She served her guest, and sat playing nervously with her fork as he ate +and praised the salad. + +"Mr. Herman sent for me the other afternoon," she began again, forcing +herself to speak calmly. "My model Ninitta is very fond of him, and +chose to be jealous of his praise of my work. It might have all gone +over without an outburst, I suppose, if she had not had her attention +called to the fact that I had modeled his head for December. Why she +had never happened to notice it I don't know; she was in the studio +constantly." + +"Not when he was there?" queried Dr. Ashton, holding up his graceful, +antique wine-glass and admiring it. + +"No, not when he was there," repeated his wife. "She had pounded off +the head when he sent for me with a mallet she had picked up in his +studio. I never saw him in such a rage. She was gone when I got there. +She didn't make any attempt to conceal it. She came stalking +melodramatically into his studio with the mallet and laid it down. +'There,' said she, 'now kill me. I have broken her work.' It was like a +fashion magazine story. He thought at first she had gone mad." + +"So she had. Women are always insane when they are jealous. I wish I +had Arthur's knack at epigram, and I'd make that sound original." + +"He says he was very harsh," Helen continued, "though I fancy he could +not be quite that in any circumstances. It was very hard," she added +with a sigh. "It was like looking at a dead child to see my best work +ruined. It was really a part of myself." + +"But can't it be repaired? It was in the clay, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, but I fear for my exhausted enthusiasm. I can never do it as it +was before. My poor, unlucky December." + +She toyed with her glass absently, apparently for the moment forgetting +her companion, who continued his supper with no less relish than +before. He watched her keenly, however, fully aware that there was more +to be told. He was a man too accustomed to follow any desire or indulge +any whim not to notice appreciatively, as he had noticed many times +before, how beautiful were the curves of his wife's arms and throat, +and with what grace her head was poised. He had once defined a liberal +man as one who could appreciate his own wife, and he would have been +far more insensible than he was, if, with this beautiful woman before +him he had not been, judged by his own standard, extremely liberal. + +"And this has what to do with the question of our relations being +known?" he asked. + +She started from her reverie, the red again showing faintly in her +cheek. + +"It is hardly fair," she answered in a tone softer and lower than that +in which she had been speaking, "to tell you all that Mr. Herman said. +He wishes to marry me." + +"And you wish you were free to have it so?" + +There was once more a pause. Helen busied herself in an elaborate +arrangement of the torn lettuce leaves upon her plate, seemingly +concentrating all her thoughts upon forming them into an intricate +figure. + +"Will," she said, suddenly, lifting her eyes and leaning towards him, +"I do not know how to make you understand. I haven't succeeded so well +in my attempts thus far in life as to be very sanguine of doing it now. +You do not know how ashamed and contemptible I felt for being party to +the deception that made it possible for him to speak so to me. He was +so honest, so earnest; he was so unconscious of the barriers between +us. I felt that I had done him such an irreparable wrong by concealing +the truth. He had a right to know that I am a married woman." + +"Did you tell him?" + +"No; but I must. I want to be free from the promise we made to each +other." + +"It all comes," returned her husband without any show of irritation, +"from my telling Fenton." + +"I cannot see what that has to do with it. I like the absence from +questioning, the avoidance of gossip, as much as you can; but it makes +me feel as if I were a living lie to have Mr. Herman bringing his +honest love to me to be met only by deception. It is cruel and it is +wrong." + +"That depends entirely upon how you define wrong," retorted Dr. Ashton +coolly. "I do not see why it is wrong for me to decline to sacrifice my +convenience to Mr. Herman's sentiment. But without going into the +question of metaphysics, let us look at the matter reasonably. Do you +love Mr. Herman?" + +Notwithstanding the studied nonchalance of his tone, a glance into his +eyes might have shown Helen how much importance he attached to her +answer. A woman is peculiarly dangerous when she is telling one man +that another loves her. The masculine greed of possession is aroused by +the mere thought of a possible rival, and Dr. Ashton was conscious at +this moment of a kindling desire himself to win Helen's love, which he +knew perfectly well had never been his. + +"That is not at all relevant," was her reply, her eyes downcast. "The +question of honesty is enough now. At least I respect Mr. Herman, and I +must treat him squarely, as you would say. You have always told me to +be 'a square fellow,' you know," she added, raising her glance with a +faint smile. + +"But if you tell him," said her husband, with a subtle tinge of +impatience in his tone, "others must know. You can't go on letting one +after another into the secret without its soon becoming public +property." + +"Why not then?" she responded. "I wonder we have been able to keep it +so long. It is sure to be known now you have come home. I do not mean +to proclaim it upon the housetops; but to let it work out if it will. +What harm can it do?" + +"It will harm me. My life is not so secluded as yours is, Helen, It +will make things confoundedly awkward. I shall have to go about giving +endless explanations. Besides, here is Arthur's wife. I particularly +don't want her to know." + +"Why not? It is precisely that I was coming to. She seems to feel far +more kindly to me than I should have supposed possible. I can't lie to +her, Will. She has already asked me questions about my past life hard +to answer. I want to tell her, so that we may have an honest basis for +our friendship. I don't want to lose my hold on her." + +"Nor on Arthur," acquiesced he gravely. "It is for that reason that I +say you had better not tell her. I usually know what I am saying, do I +not? I tell you it is for your own sake that I warn you to be quiet. +Arthur isn't going to be held in the leash very long by that piece of +china-ware piety, and it is to you he will naturally turn for sympathy. +Don't spoil your chance of his friendship by breaking with her yet." + +"Will," his wife said, with a glitter in her eyes he knew of old, +"sometimes you talk like a very fiend incarnate." + +"That," he replied rising, "is precisely what I am. There are a few +rare, but fairly well authenticated cases on record, Helen, where a man +under stress of circumstances, has been able to keep his own counsel; +women without a confidant go mad. For your own sake you'd better trust +me, now that Arthur isn't available; so I'll come and see you again. I +am obliged to you for this jolly little supper. Your salads always were +perfection. I'd like to stay and have you make me some coffee, but I +have an engagement at twelve. Good-night." + + + +XXI. + +HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; iv.--2. + + +When Grant Herman attempted to speak with Mrs. Greyson at the Fenton's +reception, he had more in view than simply the desire of being near the +woman he loved. He was full of trouble and bewilderment, and +instinctively turned toward her for aid and sympathy. + +The scene between himself and Helen, to which the latter had alluded in +her conversation with Dr. Ashton, was of far deeper import than her +words might have seemed to imply. In the first shock of discovering +that her work was broken she had been so overcome, that although she +struggled bravely to conceal her feelings, she had excited the +sculptor's keenest pity; and it not unnaturally followed that in +attempting to express his sympathy he found himself telling his love +before he was aware. He had determined to be silent upon this subject. +Uncertain what were Helen's feelings towards him and restrained by a +sense of loyalty to the bond which united him to Ninitta, he had +resolved to bury his love in his own breast, at least until time gave +him opportunity of honorably declaring it. Now circumstances betrayed +him into an avowal of his passion; and he was not without the indignant +feeling that Ninitta's act had freed him from all obligations to her. +It might have required an ingenious casuist to arrive logically at the +conclusion that an injury which the Italian had done to another +released him from his plighted word, but the person injured was the +woman he loved, and he blindly felt that Ninitta had struck at himself +through his most sensitive feelings. He renounced all the fealty to +which he had been held by a sense of honor, and he now poured out to +Helen the full tide of his passionate love. + +The sculptor was not a man to be lightly moved, but it is these calm, +grave natures that once aroused are most irresistible. His passionate +outburst took Helen unaware; she scarcely knew what she did, and she +became suddenly aware of a truth so overwhelming that every thing else +faded into insignificance beside it. + +"I love you!" he cried out; and at the word she first knew, with a +poignant pang of mingled bliss and anguish, that she too loved him. + +It seemed to her that some power above her own volition ruled her, as +in moments of high excitement the body sometimes appears to declare its +independence of the will, and to act wholly by its own decisions. She +was aware that she raised her eyes to his, although she would have +given much to avoid his glance; and she knew that it was from what he +read there that he took courage to fold her in his embrace. + +Yet with his arms about her and his piercing kisses upon her face, +Helen felt as if sinking helplessly into a mighty ocean; as if all +struggles must be unavailing, and she could only yield to the +resistless love which engulfed her. + +From this first feeling of powerlessness, however, her strong nature +sprang with a sharp recoil. She was too noble to surrender without a +struggle. She would not even think whether she loved this man; that +might be considered upon some safe vantage ground; now all energy must +be concentrated upon escaping from the deadly peril in which she found +herself. + +Helen had freed herself as far as she was able from the marriage bond +which had so galled her, and she was glad to forget that such a tie had +ever existed, but she yet remembered that she was still a wife, and the +kiss of a man not her husband overwhelmed her with shuddering +humiliation and fear. She struggled from her lover's embrace with such +an expression of terror upon her face, that he started back amazed and +grieved. + +He began to stammer confused words of contrition, of sorrow, of love, +and of supplication. + +"How could you!" she gasped. "Oh, leave me!" + +There came into her excited mind a way of escape, upon which, even +though it brought with it a sense of baseness, she seized in despair. + +"Ninitta," she said. "Ninitta!" + +He gave her a look of pain which went to her very heart. He did not +move or answer, but his whole soul seemed to look through his dark eyes +in pitiful appeal. + +"Go," she continued, but in a hurried voice which betrayed her +agitation. "Leave me now. Oh, I cannot bear it!" + +And crushed with pain and shame, she buried her face in her hands and +burst into tears. + +Herman made a step towards her, but instantly she recovered herself, +looking up with swimming eyes and lips that quivered despite her utmost +effort. + +"No," she said, "do not touch me. You must go. I cannot bear another +word. Forgive me," she went on rapidly, as he hesitated, still with +those appealing eyes fixed upon her. "Oh, forgive me, but go." + +He turned slowly and moved towards the door. The broken bas-relief, +with its beautiful mutilated figure caught his eye, and seemed again to +remind him that he had at last a right to speak to Helen, unhampered by +the thought of Ninitta. He looked back as if he would even now disobey +her and plead his love anew. But her eyes refused his prayer before it +could be uttered. He lingered still an instant. + +"I cannot go," he broke out suddenly. "I love you! I must stay! I must +at least have an answer. Do you think a man could kiss you once and +then leave you like this?" + +She shivered as if she felt anew his passionate embrace and shrank from +it. She threw her glance about as to discover some means of escape. The +gesture, the look, overwhelmed him with sudden remorse. He trusted +himself not for a single backward look now, but rushed out of the +studio, leaving her sitting there like the princess of the fairy tale +who overcame the genii only by recourse to immortal fire which consumed +her also. + +Alone in his studio the sculptor strode up and down, struggling with +the emotion which mastered him. He debated with himself whether Helen +loved him or not; yet the more carefully he recalled his interview with +her, the more impossible he found it to determine. But hope plucked +courage out of this very uncertainty, and clung to the belief that had +not Helen in her heart some affection for him, she could not have been +so touched. + +But what of Ninitta? He threw back his head and walked down the studio, +his steps sounding sharply upon the hard cement floor. What of Ninitta? +He had absurdly dallied with his supposed obligations to her long +enough. Now, at least, after this outrage, he repeated to himself, he +was free. He was at liberty now--if indeed he had not always been--to +consider what he owed to himself; what to the woman he loved. + +He recalled the hot words he had spoken to the model earlier in the +afternoon when the anger of discovery was fresh upon him, and he felt a +pang of self-reproach. He could not but know how poignant to Ninitta +must be the grief of giving him up, although he assured himself that in +the long years of separation she must have become accustomed to live +without him, and that her grief would be rather fancied than real. Yet +he was too tender-hearted to be wholly at ease after all his reasoning. +He at last started out to find Ninitta, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps +to cast her off forever. At least to come to some definite conclusion +of their doubtful relations. + +But Ninitta was not to be found. She was not in her attic; nor did she +return that night, nor the next day, nor yet the following; and it was +to tell of the model's disappearance, and to ask aid in tracing her, +that Herman had wished to speak to Helen at the Fenton's reception. + + + + +XXII. + +UPON A CHURCH BENCH. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--3. + + +Herman did not see Helen for several days after the reception, but she +came down to the studio Sunday afternoon to begin the repairing of her +mutilated bas-relief. The sculptor heard her step pass his door, and +felt a thrill at the sound for which he had longingly waited every +waking hour since he had heard Helen go out upon the night of Ninitta's +disappearance. + +He waited what seemed to him a long time, forcing himself to perform +certain trifling things needful in the studio, yet Mrs. Greyson had +only been able to get fairly to work before she heard his footstep, and +then his tap upon her door. + +He entered the studio almost hesitatingly, and after the usual +greetings stood looking gravely at the disfigured clay. + +"I began to think you were never coming to restore it," he remarked, +breaking at last the silence. + +"I could not bear to touch it," she returned, not caring to confess +that she had also wished to avoid him until time should have restored +his usual self-control. "But I determined yesterday to begin this +morning, only strangely enough I went to church for the first time +since I came from Europe." + +"Ah!" returned Herman smiling. "I often go to church when I am not too +busy." + +"I hardly supposed that a Pagan was guilty of going to any church where +he could not worship Pasht." + +"One can worship whatever deity he pleases in whatever temple, I +suppose," was his rejoinder. "I'm catholic in my tastes. I do not so +much mind what people worship, if they are only sincere about it." + +"It must be a great comfort to believe every thing, if one only could." + +"There is often danger," he observed, "that we assume it to be a +weakness to believe any thing." + +"It is, I'm afraid," replied she, turning her face from him and +seemingly intent upon her modeling. + +"At least we believe in work," Herman answered, "else we are not +artists. You certainly find joy and support in your art." + +"Yes," Helen said with a sigh; "but I fancy the joy of creation, great +as it is, can never be so satisfying to a woman as to a man. It is +humiliating to confess--or it is presumptuous to boast, I am not sure +which--but a woman is never so fully an artist as a man. He is in great +moments all artist; but a woman is never able to lay herself aside even +in her most imaginative moods." + +"I cannot think you wholly right," her master returned smiling; "but to +go back a little, at least faith is woman's peculiar province and +prerogative. We seem nowadays to pride ourselves upon being superior to +belief in any thing; but it is really a poor enough hypocrisy. If we +really believed nothing, should we ever give up a single selfish desire +or combat any impulse that seizes us. For my part, I am glad to find +men better than their professions. But this," he added with his genial +smile, "is more of a sermon, very likely, than you heard at church." + +"I at least agree with it better than the one I heard at church this +morning. The preacher patronized the Deity so that he shocked me." + +"That troubles me at church," Herman assented; "preachers are so +irreverent." + +Helen stepped back to observe the effects of the work she was doing. + +"Do you think," she ventured, "that it would be possible for me to +induce Ninitta to pose again for the May? If I told her that I am not +angry, that I understand, and that----" + +"But Ninitta is gone!" exclaimed the sculptor, suddenly recalled to +present difficulties. "I have not been able to find her since the day +she did this." + +"Gone!" echoed Helen in dismay; "and you cannot find her?" + +Herman related in detail the steps he had taken to trace Ninitta, all +of which had thus far proved unavailing. He had endeavored to avoid +publicity, but he already began to fear that it would be necessary to +call detectives to his aid. + +"Not yet," Helen said. "Let me try first. Have you seen Mr. Fenton?" + +"No; why? I have been very cautious. I have told nobody but Fred +Rangely." + +Helen reflected a moment. Her woman's instinct told her that it was not +likely Ninitta would put any great distance between herself and the +sculptor. The model could have but few acquaintances in the city, and +as she would need support it seemed probable she might try posing for +some of the artists. As this thought crossed her mind, Helen remembered +that Ninitta had promised to pose for Fenton when no longer wanted for +the has-relief. It was therefore possible that Fenton might know +something of the whereabouts of the missing girl; and in any case Helen +had been so used to consulting the artist in any perplexity, that it +was but natural for her thoughts to turn to him now. + +"Let me try," she repeated. "It will be less likely to excite talk if I +look for her; she was my model. Trust the search to me for a day or +two." + +He was only too glad to do so; glad to be released from the burden of +anxiety, as by virtue of some subtle faith in Mrs. Greyson he was; glad +of any thing in which he might obey her; glad above all of any bond of +common interest which might draw them nearer to each other, even if it +were search for the woman who stood between them. + +On her way homeward Helen went into Studio Building, but before she had +climbed half way to Fenton's room, she encountered Dr. Ashton. + +"It is of no use," was his greeting. "He isn't in. His wife has +probably taken him to church." + +"He was at church this morning," Helen answered, putting her hand into +the one Dr. Ashton extended. "I saw him." + +"Did you go to church? What a lark." + +"It was rather a lark," she assented; "only I got wretchedly blue +before the service was done." + +"What church was it? Mrs. Fenton looks as if she'd poise dizzily on +high church altitudes like the angel on St. Angelo." + +"So she does; she goes to the Nativity." + +"How did Arthur look?" + +"Amused at first; then bored; then cross; and finally, when the sermon +was well under way, indignant." + +"And his wife?" + +"His wife, Will," Helen said with a sudden enthusiasm, "looked like a +saint. She really believes all these fables. I wish I did." + +"It will be some fun to watch Arthur's conversion and backsliding," Dr. +Ashton observed, "if he really gets far enough along to be able to +backslide. Where are you going?" + +"To see Arthur. I have an errand." + +"Do you object to my walking with you?" he asked with a deference rare +enough to attract her notice. + +The sun was setting, and the trees on the Common, as yet showing but +faintest signs of coming buds, stood out against the saffron sky. The +long shadows stretched softly over the dull ground, while every slight +prominence was gilded and transfigured by the golden glow which flooded +from the west. The atmosphere had that peculiar brilliancy +characteristic of the season, while the cool and bracing air was full +of that champagne-like exhilaration in which lies at once the +fascination and the fatality of the New England climate. + +It was some time before either broke the silence. + +"How I wish," at length began Helen wistfully. + +"That shows," spoke her husband, as she left the sentence unfinished, +"that you are still under forty. When you have quadrupled your decades +you'll thank your stars for deliverances and ask for nothing more." + +"When I get to that stage, then," she returned, "I'll take poison." + +"Is that a hint?" + +"Life is bad enough now," she continued without heeding the +interruption, "but better a bitter savor than none at all." + +"You should devote yourself to cultivating the approval of conscience +as I do. I only do what I think to be right, you know." + +"But think right whatever you do." + +"Not quite that," returned the Doctor with a laugh, "but the approval +of my conscience--or of my reason, which stands in its place--is +necessary to my happiness, so I change my principles whenever my acts +don't accord with them." + +"So do a great many persons," she responded; "perhaps most of us, for +that matter, only we are seldom honest enough to own it." + +"By the way," queried her companion, as they approached her +destination, "how came Mrs. Fenton so quickly domesticated at the +Church of the Nativity?" + +"There is a young man there--a deacon or a monk; I never know these +high church terms; they are usually faded out pieces of Romanism--that +once wrote an article which enjoyed the honor of being interred in the +Princeton Review when her uncle was one of its editors." + +They reached the doorsteps and Dr. Ashton said good-by. Then he turned +back. + +"By the by," he said. "I walked up with you to make you invite me to +supper again. I enjoyed the last time very much." + +"Did you?" returned his wife, rather carelessly. "Come to-morrow--no, +not until Thursday night." + +"Very well. I am to dine here then, and I'll come and give you an +account of my visit." + + + + +XXIII. + +HEART-SICK WITH THOUGHT. + Two Gentlemen of Verona; i.--I. + + +The Fentons were just going to dinner when Helen arrived, and she was +persuaded to dine with them. She was not without some curiosity to +observe her friend in his new relations, and she also found herself +attracted by Edith, although the two women had apparently little in +common. + +The talk at dinner flowed on easily enough, Arthur conversing in the +strain which of old Helen had been pleased to call "amiable," and which +fretted her by being conventional and not wholly sincere. She liked the +artist best when he spoke without restraint, even though she might not +agree with his extravagances and often detected a trace of +artificiality in his clever epigrams. It seemed to her that the whole +tendency of Edith's influence upon her husband was towards restraint, +yet she could not be sure whether the ultimate result upon Fenton's +character might not be beneficial. + +"It depends upon Arthur himself," Helen mused. "If he is strong enough +to endure the struggle of adapting his honest belief to her honest +belief, he will be the better for it. I hope his love of ease will not +make him evade the difficulty. It never used to occur to me how little +I really know Arthur, so that I cannot tell how this will be." + +When the host was enjoying his after dinner cigar, which by especial +indulgence upon the part of Edith he was allowed to smoke in the +parlor, Helen disclosed the object of her visit. + +"Do you remember," she asked, "that model who posed for my May, and was +to come to you next week?" + +"Ninitta? Of course. What of her?" + +"That is precisely what I wish to find out," she responded. "She has +changed her address, and I thought it possible you might know something +of her whereabouts." + +"I have not seen her since the morning when she came into your studio. +Doesn't Herman know?" + +"The truth is," Helen said slowly, weighing her words with regard to +their effect upon Edith, "that she has run away, and we do not know +what has become of her. She went off in a rage, and I am troubled about +her." + +"Is she the Italian you spoke of, Arthur?" interrupted Mrs. Fenton in +her soft voice. "What is she like?" + +"Yes; a black-haired, splendidly shaped girl with piercing black eyes." + +"I think I know where she is," Edith said quietly. + +"You?" the others asked in one breath. + +"You see," Mrs. Fenton explained, turning towards Helen, "I have made +rather a plunge into charity work. Of course I meant to do something, +but I hardly expected to begin quite so soon. But Mr. Candish is my +rector, and he came for me yesterday to go to an Italian family that +cannot speak English well. The children have just been put into our +schools, but they have not advanced very far as yet. Their teacher +asked Mr. Candish to do something for them; they are wretchedly poor. I +wish you could see the place, Mrs. Greyson. Eight people in a room not +so large as this, and such poverty as you could hardly imagine. Yet +these people had taken in another. The mother goes about selling fruit, +and she happened to speak to this girl that I think is Ninitta in her +own language one night. The girl had been wandering about in the cold, +not knowing where to go, and I suppose the sound of her own tongue +touched her heart. Poor thing; she would not speak a word to me. How +strange that I should chance to find her." + +"Thank heaven she is safe," was Helen's inward exclamation. Aloud she +said: "But what is she doing?" + +"Nothing," Edith answered. "She seems to have had a little money, so +that she can pay the family something, and she has helped to take care +of the children. They are Catholics, naturally, and not in Mr. +Candish's parish; but they do not seem to have much religion of any +kind, and keep clear of the priest for some reason." + +"My wife will know more of the North End in a month," Arthur observed +with an effort at good humor which did not wholly conceal from Helen a +trace of annoyance, "than I should in six years. I wonder she can bear +to go into such dirty places. Of course philanthropy is all very well, +but I'd rather take it after it has been disinfected." + +The bitterness in his tone jarred upon Helen. She felt a pang at his +evident dissatisfaction with his wife's views, his want of harmony with +his new surroundings. + +"Arthur must be disciplined," Mrs. Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he +once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, +he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, if from nothing else." + +"Happy!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily. "Does one ever expect to be +happy nowadays? Happiness went out of fashion with our grandmothers' +bonnets." + +"In this world," Edith answered, without any trace in her voice of the +reproof which Helen half expected, "perhaps you are right. The age is +too restless and skeptical for happiness here; but that makes me long +the more for it hereafter." + +"But even in a future life," returned Helen, "I can hardly expect to be +happy, since I shall still be myself." + +"Happiness," was Mrs. Fenton's reply, "is a question of harmony with +surroundings, is it not? And your surroundings in the other life may be +such that you cannot but be happy." + +"No more theology, please," interposed Arthur. "You forget, Edith, that +I have been to church to-day, and too much piety at once might impair +my spiritual digestion forever." + +A perception that the flippancy of his tone shocked his wife, made +Helen turn the conversation again to Ninitta, arranging to go with Mrs. +Fenton in the morning to find the missing girl. + +They fell into silence after this, the twilight deepening until only +the glow of the fire lighted the room. Edith went to the piano and +played a bit of Mozart, wandering off then into the hymn-tunes which +she loved and which were familiar in all orthodox homes of the last +generation: plaintive _Olmutz_ and stately _Geneva_, aspiring +_Amsterdam_ and resonant _St. Martin's_, placid _Boylston_ and grand +_Hamburg, Nuremburg, Benevento, Turner_ and _Old Hundred_; the tunes +of our fathers, the melodies which embody the spirit of the old time +New England Sabbath, a day heavy, constrained and narrow, it may be; +but, too, a day calm, unworldly and pure. + +Arthur's cigar was finished, and he had fallen into a deep reverie, +looking into the coals. He recalled his conversations with Helen before +his marriage. He wondered whether his acquiescence in the limitations +of his present condition, his yielding to his wife's social and +religious views, was an advance or a deterioration. These pious tunes +jarred upon his mood, and he was glad when his wife left the +instrument. His Bohemian instinct stirred within him, and taunted the +ease-loving quality of his nature which put him in subjection to that +which he believed no more now than in the days when he was the most +sharp-spoken of the Pagans. A wave of disgust and self-loathing swept +over him. He turned abruptly in the dusk toward Helen. + +"Sing to us," he said. "Edith has never heard you." + +But Helen had been moved by the melodies, which came to her as an echo +from her childhood. She understood the half-peremptory accent in +Arthur's voice to which she had so often yielded, but to which she +would not now submit. + +"No," she answered. "How can you ask me. My barbaric chant would be +wholly out of keeping here. Some other time I shall be glad to sing for +Mrs. Fenton; now I must go home." + + + + +XXIV. + +IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING. + I. Henry IV.; v.--I. + + +Notwithstanding her previous visit, Mrs. Fenton found it no easy matter +to guide Helen to the place where Ninitta had taken refuge. + +The poorer classes of foreigners in any city are led by similarity of +language and occupations to gather into neighborhoods according to +their nationality, and the Italians are especially clannish. The +fruit-venders and organ-grinders form separate colonies, each +distinguished by the peculiarities incident to the calling of its +inhabitants, the crooked courts in the fruit-sellers' neighborhood +being chiefly marked to outward observance by the number of two-wheeled +hand-carts which, out of business hours, are crowded together there. + +Ninitta was found in a room tolerably clean for that portion of the +city, the old fruit woman who was its mistress having retained more of +the tidiness of thrifty peasant ancestors than most of her class. One +room was made to accommodate the mother and seven children, and during +the absence of the former from home the premises were left in charge of +a girl just entering her teens, who, when Helen and Edith reached the +place, was engaged in preparing the family dinner of maccaroni. The +younger members of the family had just returned from school, and were +noisily clamoring for their share, and all together relating the +incidents of the day. + +Upon a bed in one corner lay the object of their search, her face +flushed, her hair disordered, her eyes wild and vacant. To all +appearances she was in a high fever, and she took no heed of Edith, who +approached the bed and spoke to her. At the sound of Mrs. Greyson's +voice, however, the sick girl gave a cry and raised herself into a +sitting posture. + +"No, no!" she exclaimed in Italian, excitedly, "I will not! I will +not!" + +Helen drew off her gloves and sat down upon the dingy bed beside +Ninitta, regarding her with pitying eyes. + +"You shall not," she answered, in the girl's own language. "You need do +nothing but what you choose." + +The soft tone seemed to calm Ninitta. She allowed Helen to arrange the +soiled and crumpled pillows, and yielded when her self-constituted +nurse wished her to lie down again. The latter procured a bowl of +water, and with her handkerchief bathed the sick girl's face, soothing +her with womanly touches which waked in Edith a new feeling of sympathy +and tenderness. Mrs. Greyson's white fingers, contrasting strongly with +the Italian's clear dark skin, smoothed the tangled hair from the hot +forehead, and all the while her rich, pure voice murmured comforting +words, of little meaning in themselves, perhaps, but sweet with the +sympathy and womanhood which spoke through them. + +Edith meanwhile was not idle. She applied herself to hushing the +boisterous children, and to bringing something like quiet out of the +tumult of the crowded room. She assisted the girl with her maccaroni, +gravely listening to the principles which governed its equitable +distribution, with her own hands giving the grimy little children the +share belonging to each. An air of comfort seemed to come over the +frowsy room after Edith had quietly set a chair straight here, picked +up something from the floor there, and arranged the ragged shade at the +window. Even the little Italians, half barbarians as they were, felt +the change, and were more subdued. + +Ninitta, too, was calmed and soothed, and, with Helen's cool hand upon +her hot brow, she sank presently into a drowse. + +"Mrs. Fenton," Helen whispered, fanning her sleeping patient, "Ninitta +cannot remain here. I must take her home with me. I think she had +better run the risk of being moved than to be ill in this crowded +room." + +"But," remonstrated Edith, somewhat aghast at this summary procedure, +"you do not even know what is the matter with her." + +"No," Helen returned lightly, "but I shall probably discover." + +"Not by finding it something contagious, I hope," her friend said, +laying her hand upon Mrs. Greyson's forehead with a slight, caressing +touch. + +"Can you get me a hack?" Helen asked of the girl who kept the house. + +But the girl had no idea how to obtain one of those vehicles, which she +had been accustomed to see driving about with a certain awe, but +without the hope of ever being able to do more than admire them from a +distance, unless, indeed, she should have the great good fortune of +going to a funeral, when perhaps she might even ride in one, as did +little Sally McMann of the next court, when her mother died. Mrs. +Fenton therefore went herself for the carriage, finding remonstrance in +vain to change her companion's decision. + +During her absence Ninitta awakened, and, while seeming more rational, +was less quiet than before. She repulsed her visitor with angry looks +and muttered defiance. Knowing perfectly well the cause of the girl's +agitation, Helen knew, also, that it was best to go directly to the +root of the matter, and she did so unshrinkingly. + +"You are wrong," she said in Ninitta's ear. "It is you he loves. You +are to go home with me because he wishes it." + +At first the sick girl seemed to gather no meaning from these words, +but as Helen repeated the assurance again and again, in different +phrases and with Herman's name, she became passive, as if she at least +caught the spirit if not the actual significance. + +Mrs. Fenton had some difficulty in finding a carriage, and by the time +she returned Ninitta had yielded herself submissively to Helen's +guidance. + +Mrs. Greyson saw that her charge was carefully protected against the +cold, a matter which the mildness of the day rendered easy, and, +supported by the two ladies, the model was able to walk down stairs to +the carriage. + +During the drive homeward Helen lay back thinking hotly, and flushed +with excitement. Ninitta sank into a doze, and Mrs. Fenton sat looking +at her friend with the air of one who has discovered in an acquaintance +characteristics before wholly unsuspected. She hesitated a little, and +then, mastering her shyness, she bent forward and kissed Helen's hand. + +The other submitted in silence. Indeed, the exaltation of her mood +seemed to lift her above her surroundings so that she felt a strange +remoteness from her companion. Yet she was conscious of a vague twinge +of annoyance at Edith's act, although she could neither have excused +nor defined the feeling. Mrs. Fenton not infrequently aroused in her a +curious mingling of attraction and repulsion; and it was under the +influence of the latter that she answered brusquely her friend's next +remark. + +"How did you quiet Ninitta?" Edith asked. + +"By telling her lies," returned Helen wearily and laconically. + +"What!" + +"She is in no condition to be dealt with rationally," continued Mrs. +Greyson, in a tone explanatory, but in no way defensive, "so I said +whatever would soothe her." + +Edith sat in silent dismay. Apparently the woman before her, by whose +generous self-forgetfulness she had been touched, was perfectly +untroubled by the idea of speaking a falsehood, a state of mind so +utterly beyond Edith's experience as to be incomprehensible to her. She +could not bring herself to remonstrate, but it pained her that such +philanthropy should be stained by what she considered so wrong. + +Mrs. Fenton was perhaps equally mistaken in her opinion of Helen's +regard for truth and of her philanthropy. Mrs. Greyson had a deep +repugnance to falsehood, and Arthur Fenton had often good-humoredly +jeered at what he called her Puritanic scrupulousness in this respect. +On an occasion such as at present, however, the use of an untruth would +cause her not even a second thought, her reason so strongly supporting +her course as even to overcome her instincts; a fact which a moralist +might deplore but which still remains a fact. + +Her philanthropy, upon the other hand, although seeming to Edith so +disinterested, was largely instigated by a desire to aid Grant Herman. +Just what she wished or expected him to do, she could not have told, +her actions being no more regulated by strict logic than those of most +women; but she felt that it was the office of friendship to see, if +possible, that no harm came to the Italian through the jealousy which +both herself and Herman knew to be but too well founded. She determined +to take Ninitta home and do for her all that was necessary, in order +that the sculptor be spared the remorse which would pursue him if harm +came to his old betrothed. She was not without a secret feeling, +moreover, scarcely acknowledged to herself, that she owed some +reparation to the girl whose lover's heart she had won, no matter how +undesignedly. + +Reaching home, she got Ninitta to bed and sent for Dr. Ashton. Then she +dispatched a note to Grant Herman, saying: + +"Ninitta is with me; give yourself no uneasiness." + + + + +XXV. + +THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME. + +Measure for Measure; iv.--4. + + +Ninitta's illness proved after all very slight. So slight, indeed, that +Dr. Ashton, calling in on his way to dine with the Fentons Thursday +evening, found her gone. She had insisted upon returning to her attic, +although Helen had not allowed her to depart without promising not to +abscond a second time. + +Ninitta was grateful to Mrs. Greyson with all the ardor of her +passionate southern heart. She did not, it is true, understand the +relations between Herman and Helen, but even her jealousy was lost in +the gratitude she felt for the beautiful woman who had cared for her, +and it is not unlikely saved her from a dangerous illness. It did not +seem possible to the undisciplined Italian, versed only in crude, +simple emotions, that a woman who was her rival could treat her with +tenderness. She accepted Helen's kindness as indisputable proof that +the latter did not love the sculptor, a conclusion which the premises +scarcely warranted. She volunteered to pose again, and Mrs. Greyson, +thinking it well to keep the girl under her influence, and desiring a +return to at least the semblance of the peaceful existence preceding +the stormy episode just ended, eagerly accepted this offer, only +stipulating that the model should undertake nothing until she was +really well able. + +"I shall come back to supper," Dr. Ashton said, as he left his wife. "I +have half a mind not to go to Fenton's; only it amuses me to watch the +fellow's degeneration." + +"It never amuses me to watch any degradation," she returned gravely. +"How do you know he is degenerating? If you mean by following his wife, +why, they may be right after all, and what we call superstition the +veriest truth." + +"Of course," answered he. "I never pretended to administer the +exclusive mysteries of truth; but it is always a degradation to yield +to personal influence at the expense of conviction. Arthur is as much +of a heathen to-day as he ever was, only he is too fond of comfort to +have the courage of his opinions." + +Helen sighed. + +"Truth to me," she said thoughtfully, "is whatever one sincerely +believes; I cannot conceive of any other standard. One man's truth is +often another's falsehood." + +"You are as dull as a preface to-night, Helen; what carking care is +gnawing at your vitals?" + +"Nothing in particular. A certain melancholy is befitting a widow, you +know, and that's what I am supposed to be." + +"On the contrary there is a certain vivacity about the word widow to my +mind." + +"Your experience has been wider than mine. I am aware that I am too +much given to vast moral reflections, but you provoke them." + +"I am sorry to provoke you," he said gayly. "Forgive me before supper +time; who knows what rich experiences I may have between now and then. +Good-by." + +As he walked toward his appointment, could Dr. Ashton's vision have +reached to the house whither he was going, he would have seen Arthur +Fenton and his wife sitting together before an open fire awaiting their +guest. The artist was showing Edith a portfolio of sketches by foreign +painters, which he had brought from his studio. + +"What a strange uncanny thing this is," he remarked, holding one up. +"It is just like Frontier; I never saw any thing more characteristic. I +wonder you got so few of his tricks, Edith, while you studied with +him." + +"He always repelled me. I was afraid of him. Where did you get this +sketch?" + +"Dr. Ashton gave it to me." + +"Dr. Ashton!" + +"Yes; when he was in Paris, both he and his wife were intimate with +Frontier. Or at least Will was." + +"Oh, Arthur!" + +She leaned forward in her chair, her always pale face assuming a new +pallor. Laying her hand upon her husband's, she asked in a quick, +excited manner: + +"Do you know how Frontier died?" + +"I know he died suddenly; now you speak of it, I have an idea it was a +case of _felo de se_. You know I was in Munich at the time." + +"Arthur," Edith said earnestly, "I have never told even you; but I saw +Frontier die. I had a pass-key to his studio, and his private rooms +were just behind it. That night I went in on my way from dinner--Uncle +Peter and I had been dining together, and I left him at the door with +the carriage--after a study I'd forgotten. We were going to Rome the +next morning, and I didn't want to leave it. The picture was at the +further end of the studio, and as I went down the room I heard voices +and saw that Frontier's door was open. He sat at a table with a tiny +wine-glass in his hand. A man who stood back to me said, just as I came +within hearing: 'It is none of my affair, and I shall not interfere; +but you'll allow me to advise you not to be rash.' I could not hear +Frontier's answer, partly because I paid no attention, of course never +suspecting the truth. But as I went towards my easel, Frontier, hearing +the noise, I suppose, and afraid of being interrupted, caught up the +glass and drank what was in it. The other man sprang forward just in +time to catch him as he fell back, and it suddenly came over me that he +was taking poison. I cried out and ran into the room, but it seemed +only an instant before it vas all over. Oh, it was terrible, Arthur, +terrible!" + +She covered her agitated face with her hands, as if to shut out the +vision which rose before her. Her husband sat in silent astonishment, a +conviction growing in his mind of whom the other witness of Frontier's +death must have been. + +"Arthur," Edith broke out suddenly, "that man was no better than a +murderer. He let Frontier kill himself. When I cried out, 'Oh, why +didn't you stop him!' he said as coolly as if I had asked the most +trivial question, 'Why should I? What right had I to interfere?' It was +terrible! He seemed to me a perfect fiend!" + +"It was--who was it?" demanded her husband, a name almost escaping him +in his excitement. + +"It was Dr. Ashton; the man who is coming to sit down at your table +to-night. Arthur, I cannot meet him! I knew when he came to our +reception that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where. There +is his ring now. Let me get by you!" + +"But where are you going?" Fenton asked in amazement. + +"To my room. Any where to get out of his way." + +"But what shall I tell him?" + +"The truth; that I will not sit down to eat with a murderer." + +She vanished from the room, leaving her husband alone. Dr. Ashton's +step was already upon the stair, and however keenly Mrs. Fenton might +feel the wickedness of the Doctor in not preventing Frontier's +self-destruction, the action was too strictly in accord with Arthur's +own views to allow of his condemning it. His friend found him in a +state of confusion which instantly connected itself in the guest's mind +with the non-appearance of Edith, an impression which was strengthened +by the lameness of the excuses tendered for her absence. Dr. Ashton not +unnaturally concluded that he had just escaped stumbling upon a family +quarrel. He accepted whatever his host chose to say, and the two +proceeded rather gloomily to dinner. + +In Arthur's mind there sprang an irritation against both his wife and +his friend. His instincts were all protective, that term including +comfort as well as self-preservation. He was intensely annoyed at his +wife's attitude, and began to vent his spleen in cynical speeches, +which since his marriage had been rare with him. + +"Christian grace," he declared, "is exactly like milk; excellent and +nourishing while it is fresh, but hard to get pure, and even then sure +to sour." + +"Say something more original if you are cross, Arthur," observed his +friend good humoredly. "What is the matter? Is it a new rug or a +Japanese bronze you are dying for?" + +"Hang rugs and bronzes," retorted Arthur, with a vicious determination +to be ill-natured. "If I can get the necessities of life, I am lucky." + +"Nonsense," was the reply. "It isn't that. The lack of the necessities +of life makes a man sad; it is the lack of luxuries that makes him +cynical." + +Dr. Ashton was perfectly right in his inward comment that Fenton was +secretly regretting his marriage. This was the thought that filled +Arthur's mind. It was true he had had no absolute disagreement with his +wife, although it is not impossible that it might have come to this, +had a delay in the guest's arrival allowed time. But it filled the +husband with an unreasoning rage that Edith presumed to establish so +strict a code of morals. He felt that her position as his wife demanded +more conformity to his standards. Why need she trouble herself about +that which did not concern her, and sit in such lofty judgment upon the +morals of her neighbors? Did she propose keeping Dr. Ashton's +conscience as well as her own--and his? Certainly those whom the +husband found worthy his friendship it ill became the wife to +stigmatize and avoid. He sat moodily tearing his fish in pieces instead +of eating; for the moment wholly forgetting his duty as host. + +"If you'll pardon my mentioning it," Dr. Ashton said at length, "you +are about as cheerful company as a death's head. You are so melancholy +that I am tempted to fling in your face one of my old epigrams; that +love is a gay young bachelor who can never be persuaded to marry and +settle down." + +The other laughed and made an effort to shake off his gloom; but with +so little success that his guest resolved to escape at the earliest +moment possible. Something in Fenton's forced talk, however, attracted +Dr. Ashton's attention. + +"My wife was a pupil of Frontier." + +The simple phrase, which had escaped Arthur's lips because it had been +in his mind not to allude to this fact, might have gone unnoticed had +not the speaker himself so strongly felt the shock of disclosure as to +show sudden confusion. The whole matter was at once clear to Dr. +Ashton, who having recognized Edith at the reception, had been prepared +for identification in his own turn. + +"So that," he observed calmly, "is the reason Mrs. Fenton does not dine +with us to-night. I knew she was sure to recognize me sooner or later; +but as I had no motive for concealing this matter, on the other hand I +had no reason for recalling so unpleasant a circumstance to her mind." + +There was a pause of a moment, and then the Doctor continued: + +"I think Frontier was rather foolish. I told him so. A charming little +Hungarian girl of whom he was fond, had left him to follow the fortunes +of a Polish Count, or something of the sort. I do not see why a man +should kill himself for so trifling a thing as a woman; but if he chose +to, I am not one of those officious persons who feel justified in +interfering with any private act they don't happen to approve. I +certainly should resent such impertinent intrusion into my own +affairs." + +"And I," assented Arthur doggedly; "but my wife----" + +"Certainly; I understand. Mrs. Fenton says hard things of me because I +would not rob poor Frontier of what little comfort he could get from +dying. Very well; I will not offend her by my presence. Only she is +setting herself a hard task in attempting to treat people according to +their conservatism. In these days the sheep and goats have come to be +so much alike in appearance, that I scarcely see how a mere mortal is +to distinguish between them. My own case I settle for her by avoiding +her house." + +"But this is my house," protested Arthur, intensely chagrined. + +"No," his guest replied, still smiling and moving toward the door. "It +is the nest you have built for your love and your--regeneration! Good +night." + + + + +XXVI. + +THERE BEGINS CONFUSION. + I Henry VI.; iv.--i. + + +Alone in her own room, Edith relieved her overwrought feelings by a +burst of tears, brief, indeed, but bitter. Like her husband, she felt +that this incident, although not assuming the guise of a quarrel, was +an opening wedge in the unity of their affection. Unlike Arthur, +however, she thought of it with self-reproach and misgiving. She did +not for an instant consider the possibility of having taken a different +position in regard to Dr. Ashton, yet in a womanly, illogical way, she +felt that she should have learned her husband's wishes before so +vehemently declaring her own views. + +She heard the artist and his guest go in to dinner, and the thought +flashed upon her that this was the first time her husband had dined +without her since their marriage. She wondered if he remembered it, +and, remembering, regretted. She longed for companionship, for some +friend into whose sympathetic ear she could pour her story, from whom +she might ask advice. She reflected sadly how far she was removed from +her intimate friends. Of her new acquaintances many had been most kind +to her, but towards none of them, not even to her relatives, had she +been so strongly drawn as to wish now to go to them for confidence and +sympathy; unless, came a second thought, it were Mrs. Greyson. She was +a widow, Edith reflected, and had evidently suffered much, while the +strength of her character was evident from her dealing with the Italian +girl. It would be no disloyalty to go to her; there had been no words +spoken between husband and wife which could not be told a friend, and +Edith felt that she needed the advice of a woman more versed in the +intricacies of life than herself. + +She dressed herself for walking, and slipped noiselessly out of the +house. + +Mrs. Greyson was at dinner, and was naturally surprised at seeing her +caller, but she had both too much tact and too much breeding to ask +explanations. + +"I do hope you have not dined," she said. "I am so much alone that it +is a perfect delight to me to have company. My dinner is a little like +a picnic, but if you will only consider how great a favor you are doing +me by sharing it, the consciousness of philanthropy ought to make it +palatable." + +Neither lady mentioned Arthur, although his name was uppermost in the +thoughts of both. They sat down together in Helen's tiny dining-room, +and served by her only maid, had a charming meal. The hostess exerted +herself to entertain her guest, wisely judging that what Edith said in +calmness she would be far less likely to regret than words uttered in +the unguarded moments of her excitement. She told Mrs. Fenton stories +of her studio life both in Boston and abroad, she led Edith on to speak +of her own travels and experiences, until the latter almost forgot that +she was dining in one house and her husband in another. It was not +until the coffee was reached, coffee made as only Helen could make it, +that the subject of the visit was really broached. + +"How is Mr. Fenton?" Helen asked deliberately, believing the time had +come for such a question. + +The face of the other fell. She experienced a pang at the consciousness +of having been gay and happy, forgetful of her husband and her trouble. + +"He is well," she answered falteringly. + +"Why did you not bring him with you?" continued Mrs. Greyson lightly, +yet with a secret determination to know the cause of her guest's +evident disturbance. + +"He did not know I was coming," Edith responded in a low voice. "That +is what I came to talk about. I thought you might understand; but it +involves a third person, and perhaps I ought not to tell you. I am +sure, though," she went on, gaining confidence now that the ice was +broken, "that I can trust you. A friend of Arthur's came to dine +to-night, and just as the door-bell rang, I found him to be the man I +once saw commit murder in Paris." + +"Murder!" exclaimed Helen, turning white. "Commit murder?" + +"Consent to it," corrected Edith, unconsciously a little pleased to +have produced so great an effect upon her usually self-possessed +friend. "He looked on while Frontier took poison, without trying to +prevent him." + +"But that," Mrs. Greyson said slowly, "is hardly the same thing as +murder." + +"It is quite as bad," Edith protested earnestly. "It makes me shudder +to think of his dining alone with Arthur at this moment. Who knows what +might happen!" + +"Nothing tragic, I think," Helen replied smiling. "He does not go about +with pistols in his belt, I suppose.' + +"It is awful to me," Edith continued, with increasing excitement, too +much stirred to notice the sarcasm. "I told Arthur I could not sit down +with a murderer, and just at that moment we heard his step, and I ran +away upstairs; and then I felt dreadfully, and I came to you." + +"I thank you for your confidence. But what do you mean to do? What will +Arthur tell him?" + +"The truth, I hope." + +"He is scarcely likely to say to the guest he has himself invited that +you think him a murderer," answered her friend, smiling again, "and I +am not sure that he would even look at this quite so severely as you +do." + +"How else can he look at it?" demanded Edith. "How else can any one +look at it? Isn't it murder to take human life, and if one does not +prevent suicide when he might, isn't it the same as if he did it +himself?" + +"We will not get into a discussion," Helen replied gently. "I feel +about it as you do; though I believe very differently. But I see +perfectly well how a man might be strictly honest in thinking that it +was the privilege of any human being to lay aside his life when he is +weary of it; and I do not presume to condemn others for feeling what I +only think I believe." + +"Think you believe!" cried the other in horror. "You do not think you +believe that murder is right?" + +"Assuredly not; but as there are so many related points upon which we +do not agree, would it not be better to talk of this particular case +than of general belief?" + +"But it is impossible for any one to believe as you say," persisted +Edith; "simply impossible. No one can believe that wrong is right." + +"But each has his own standard." + +Against this Edith protested, but Helen returned no answer. She +regretted being involved in such a debate, and resolved to let the +discussion go no further. They sat in silence a moment, and then Edith +again spoke. + +"I do not know what to do," she said. "Of course Arthur cannot know +that man any longer. You were in Paris at the time Frontier died, were +you not? Did you ever know----" + +She broke off suddenly, remembering that she had not intended +disclosing the name of her guest. + +"Dr. Ashton?" Helen returned, fixing her eyes upon her companion, and +unconsciously speaking with a deliberation which gave especial weight +to her words. "Yes; I know him. We went to Paris together." + +"Together! Was he a friend of your husband? How did you know whom I +meant?" + +There was no perceptible pause before Helen answered; but meanwhile she +determined to throw aside all concealment. She could no longer stand +before Arthur Fenton's wife with the humiliation of even a tacit +deception between them. She felt a spirit of defiance rising within +her. Who was this woman that she assumed the right to judge them all by +standards for whose narrowness only contempt was possible! At least she +would rise above all conventional prejudices, and no longer tacitly +ask, as by silence she had done, exemption from the harsh judgments of +Mrs. Fenton's creed. + +Helen was too womanly not to shrink from this disclosure, and she had +been too thoroughly educated in the faith by which Edith lived not to +understand just how her life would appear seen through the latter's +belief. Disconnected with a question relating to the marriage relation +and by implication casting reflection upon her delicacy and even purity +of life as a woman separated from her lawful husband, Helen could have +met with dispassionate reasoning whatever assault Edith made upon her. +This point was too vital, it touched too closely the core of her +woman's nature, and although she retained perfectly her self-control, +there was a pulse of passion in her voice when she spoke. + +"Dr. Ashton," she said unflinchingly, "is my husband." + +"What?" cried Edith. + +"We have not found it convenient to live together," Helen continued, +with increasing calmness, a faint tinge of contempt creeping into her +voice, "and so since my return from Europe I have taken my mother's +name to avoid gossip. Dr. Ashton and I are very good friends still." + +"And did Mr. Fenton know this?" asked the other, very pale. + +"Certainly; although you understand that it is not a matter which we +discuss with the world at large. I pass, I believe, as a widow; though +I have never done or said any thing to give color to that idea." + +It is doubtful if Helen fully comprehended the effect of these words +upon her guest. Every fiber of Edith's being tingled. All her most +sacred principles seemed outraged. She in some remote way felt, +moreover, as if to hear without protest so lax notions of the +responsibilities of marriage was to stain her womanhood and dim the +luster of her modesty. + +"How dared he introduce you to me?" she cried. "You are the wife of a +murderer and you defend his crime; you pretend to be a widow, you +ignore your marriage----" + +"Stop," the hostess said with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. +Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in +seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. +You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have +kept it from your knowledge." + +But Edith made her no answer. She was too much overwhelmed by the +various emotions which the disclosure of the evening had aroused. + +Edith was, from Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but +the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's +vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity +arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and +doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by +its jar the most ordinary affairs of life. + +Edith was pure, high minded, simple souled, and for the rest she was +honest and earnest. Her creeds were vitalized by the warm fervor with +which she clung to them, and what more could be demanded of her? + +She quitted the dining-room, and soon Helen heard the outer door close +behind her. The night gathered, and the lonely woman left behind sat +long in sad reverie, until the door was again opened to admit Dr. +Ashton. + + + + +XXVII. + +WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE. + Hamlet; i.--2. + + +Dr. Ashton came in too full of his own interview with Arthur to notice +particularly if his wife showed signs of agitation. + +"My dear," he said, throwing himself into a chair, "it is at once one +of the latest and the wisest of my reflections that you had better +consider a newly married man as an entire stranger and form his +acquaintance quite from the foundation, wholly unbiased by any notion +you had of him as a bachelor." + +"His wife," responded Helen quietly, "has been dining with me, so I +understand something of the situation. But how did Arthur behave?" + +"Like any husband who does not care to quarrel with his wife even when +he disapproves of her. It is upon that principle that matrimonial +felicity depends. Do you say Mrs. Fenton has been here?" + +"Yes; she came to me for sympathy and I administered it by telling her +that I am your wife." + +"The devil! I beg your pardon; but, Helen, it was precisely because I +knew she was sure to remember this Frontier scrape that I wanted her +not to know. She will be very hard on you." + +"Christianity is always hard," returned she; "but what difference does +it make; it was only a question of time. She is sweet and pure and +good, Will, but her religion holds her in bands stronger than steel. I +couldn't long keep step with one in chains. It might as well come now +as any time." + +Her husband looked at her with evident interest not unmixed with +admiration. + +"She provokes me to do and to say childish things," Helen continued, +"just to shock her. I told her bluntly the other day that I had been +telling a falsehood, and she had the impertinence to look shocked. I am +not sure that I did not go so far as to say I 'lied,' a word that +hardly holds the place in English that it did in the good days of Mrs. +Opie. She would have been reconciled if I had said I told what I hoped +was true." + +"I should have told her," laughed Dr. Ashton, "that I only used truth +as the Egyptians used straw in bricks, the smallest possible quantity +that will hold the rest together." + +"I cannot see why Arthur married her," Helen said musingly. + +"Oh, as to that, an idle man will fall in love with any pretty woman +who will snub him." + +"But Arthur isn't idle, and she doesn't snub him." + +"Very well; he married her because he fell in love for no reason but +the weakness of our sex." + +"Love seems generally to be regarded by the masculine mind in the light +of a weakness." + +"Isn't it?" her husband returned. "Love is the condition of desiring +the impossible, and if that is not a weakness, what becomes of logic?" + +"I am tired of logic," she said, rising abruptly. "I am tired of every +thing. Let us have supper. I want a glass of wine. I am sure I tried to +be kind to Mrs. Fenton. I would have helped her if I could; but how +could I assist her unless she chose to let me, and that, too, knowing +who I am." + +"I never knew you to be other than kind," was the grave reply, which +brought to Helen's cheek a faint flush of pleasure. + +The servant came in with supper, and the slender glasses were filled +with Rhine wine. + +"I could not help thinking," Dr. Ashton said, lifting his glass,--"I +drink to your very good health, my dear--I could not help thinking of +my wedding gift to Arthur, that he asked me for it, I mean." + +"I thought of it, too, when his wife told me the story. It is well she +does not know that of you." + +"Oh, it wouldn't matter," he said carelessly. "She couldn't feel a +greater horror of me than she does already. Do you see the mark of Cain +on my forehead, Helen?" + +"Isn't it droll," she returned, with a smile half pensive, half +humorous, "to feel ourselves suddenly tried by new standards and found +so wanting. I am not sure but dramatic propriety demands that I should +poison Mrs. Fenton. I have that vial, you know." + +"Did you notice the inscription on the vial?" + +"No; is there one?" + +"See for yourself," he answered, refilling his glass. + +She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco +case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and +distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her +place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, +shining upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue +dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her +delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within +these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more +truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him +through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in +speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in +his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He +had determined to speak his passion, but as he looked at his wife +sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay +between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the +tiny cut-glass vial from its velvet bed. + +"How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily +lifting it to her nostrils. + +"Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly. + +"Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off. + +"It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely +stopped." + +She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the glass. + +"'Death foils the gods,'" she read. "Is it one of your own +wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to +Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she +has lost." + +"What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is +pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd +sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant +body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned +reprobate." + +"Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of +destroying your peace of mind." + +"I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind +the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands." + +"Yes," assented the other, "himself." + +She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-glass vial. + +"How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We +become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the +shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the +theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness." + +"That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it +ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of +cheese." + +"There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing +over the table. + +"Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that +fact. "It is of no consequence." + +"Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it." + +She restored the vial to its place, laying the closed case by her +plate, and left the room. The instant the door closed behind her, Dr. +Ashton reached across the table, possessed himself of the vial, +returning the case to its former position. His wife turned just outside +the door, and came back with a meaning smile to take up the empty case +and lock it again in the cabinet. + +"I cannot trust you," she remarked with a smile; "you are too eager to +foil the gods." + +He smiled in return, holding his wine-glass up to the light. + +"There is more where that came from," he said. "You forget my +profession." + +"Of what are you musing so intently?" Helen queried, half an hour +later, while, the supper being ended, her husband was enjoying his +cigar. + +"Of two things which I have to communicate. One is a folly and the +other--or perhaps I should say each--is a misfortune." + +"The folly," returned she, "I forgive; the misfortune I regret. What +are they?" "I am glad you forgive the folly. That gives me boldness to +tell it. I have fallen in love." + +"You, Will! With whom?" + +"That is the madness of it. With my wife." + +"Will!" + +"It is the truth," he went on, half whimsically, but with a certain +ring of earnestness in his tone. "I acknowledge the madness, the poor +taste of a man's falling in love with his own wife, but the fact +stubbornly remains. I have been in love with you for a long time, but I +stood back for Arthur like a good fellow." + +"I never was in love with Arthur," she interrupted. + +"It is no matter," he continued. "The question is, can't you get up a +grain of grace for me, old lady?" + +He leaned over the table, his dark eyes shining as she had never seen +them before. She was fascinated by his gaze; she felt as if the ground +were slipping from beneath her feet, and as though he were casting upon +her an evil spell. A wave of despair swept over her. Must she again +submit to his power; were the old days of bitter bondage to return; was +she nothing but a puppet to his will? + +In this extremity a memory saved her. Unable to withdraw her gaze from +her husband's face, there came to her suddenly the look in the eyes of +Grant Herman that day when he told her his love. The blood surged to +her cheeks, but her calmness returned. + +"It is of no use, Will," she said with gentle firmness. "All that is +past forever between us. We had better not speak of it," she added +wistfully. "I have so few friends that I cannot bear to lose any one of +them." + +"My folly is then my misfortune," he responded, with no appearance of +diminished good humor. "It is the pleasure of the gods to torment me; I +suppose it amuses them. The old Romans were only aping them in their +blood-thirsty sports, and I fancy that is the secret of their +deification, for nothing seems so much to the liking of the gods as to +torment humanity." + +The evident endeavor which the speaker made to appear flippant and at +his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without +fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled +man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She +turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-glass. +Her own life had been too sad for her not to feel some emotion at his +words. She strove to repress the thoughts which made her bosom swell +and heave, yet it was from them her words came when she broke the +silence. + +"It is bitterest to find one's self mistaken. To find that our gods are +only clay like the rest of humanity. I could forgive a friend for +neglect, abuse or any cruelty; but I could never forgive him for +falling below my ideal of him." + +"You do not mean me," he returned placidly, "for of me you never had an +ideal; but waiving that for a moment, I should like to tell you of my +second misfortune--if it isn't to be reckoned a blessing." + +She looked at him without speaking. If this disclosure were but a +repetition in varied form of the other, she had no wish to help him put +it into words. Yet even as this thought passed through her mind, she +fancied she had detected in his tone some new gravity. + +"I've discovered," continued Dr. Ashton, with the same light manner he +had used throughout the interview, "that I have a cancer gayly but with +grim persistency developing under my arm." + +"Oh, Will," Helen cried, clasping her hands, "you are not in earnest!" + +"I assure you it is a very earnest matter with me, and has been for +some time. I might have an operation, I suppose, if it were worth +while; though it is so near the heart that it would be uncomfortably +risky." + +Helen became suddenly calm. The color faded slowly from her cheeks, and +her husband, watching her narrowly, saw her beautiful lips assume a new +expression of firmness and determination. She unconsciously lifted her +head into a more erect carnage. Her eyes were moist and full of +feeling. Slowly in her mind formed a resolve, and with a full knowledge +of the renunciation of self which it involved, she called up all the +nobility of her soul to aid her in living up to it. Creeds were little +to this woman, yet her life was formed upon the principles which give +to creeds their stability, and by which the moral is removed from the +animal. + +"Will," she at length said, slowly and gravely, "could it not be +arranged for me to live with you? You did not tell me you were fond of +me without having thought out the possibilities." + +"I should have hesitated to ask so much," was his reply, "even of your +love; I shall certainly not take it of your pity." + +"My pity?" she murmured, not raising her eyes. "What do you mean?" + +"You know. You cannot think me so dull as not to see that your proffer +comes not from affection, but from generosity. I thank you, but I will +accept no sacrifices." + +He rose as he spoke, and put out his hand. + +"I must be going," he said in an indifferent tone. "I have letters to +write that must be mailed by midnight. I am not more than half as bad, +Helen, as you have always persisted in thinking. I never made very +profound pretensions, but I've treated every body squarely from my own +point of view. If they have regarded my blessings as curses, it wasn't +my fault, and I am not sufficiently hypocritical to pretend that I +think it was. Good night." + +He gave her hand a warmer and more lingering pressure than usual. + +"I've had a very pleasant evening," he added, "despite the admixture of +truth. Young people don't like any bitters, but we old, shattered +wrecks need a dash of it in the wine of life to help digestion. Good +night." + + + + +XXVIII. + +LIKE COVERED FIRE. + Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--I. + + +That night marked an epoch in the married life of Arthur and Edith +Fenton. + +The results of matrimony upon character are for the most part slow and +hardly perceptible, yet even so not without certain well-defined stages +by which their progression forces itself into recognition; and in +fervid temperaments like that of the artist, any change is sure to be +rapid, and marked by sharp and sudden crises. + +Edith returned from Helen with her soul in a tumult. Grant Herman had +described more than her face when he applied to her the epithet +nun-like. It was a source of perpetual wonderment to many of her +friends that such a girl could be so strongly attracted by Arthur +Fenton; but those who knew his marvelous flexibility, the unconscious +hypocrisy with which he adapted himself to any nature with which he +came in contact, and on the other hand his fascinating manner, at once +brilliant and sympathetic, felt Edith's love to be the perfectly +natural consequence. She believed him to be what she wished, and he, +without conscious deceit, became for the time being what she believed +him to be. + +It was a theory of Dr. Ashton's that what Arthur Fenton became was so +purely a question of environment as to leave the artist all but +irresponsible. This fatalistic view he had laid before his wife with +some detail, at once explaining and defending his position. + +"If a chameleon is put upon a black tree," he said on one occasion when +the matter was under discussion, "you have really no right to blame him +for becoming black too; it is simply his nature. If Arthur is like that +it isn't his fault. He wasn't consulted, I fancy, about how he should +be made at all. He is self-indulgent, and if a point hurts him he +glides away from it. He cannot help it." + +"There is something in what you say," Helen had reluctantly assented, +"but I think you put it far too strongly." + +"Oh, very likely," was the careless reply. "His strongest instinct, +though, is to escape pain. We are none of us better than our +instincts." + +To such a decision as this, had she heard it, Edith, too religious to +acknowledge any thing tending towards fatalism, would not for a moment +have agreed; yet it embodied a truth destined to cause her deepest +sorrow, and which was gradually forcing itself upon her. Already, +although they had been married so few weeks, even her love-blinded eyes +could not but perceive much in her husband which shocked and pained +her. She had not considered deeply enough, never having had the +experience which would have taught her the need of considering, how +great was the gulf between her moral standpoint and that of her +betrothed. He had seemed so yielding that she had failed to perceive +that his compliances were merely outward, and left his mental attitude +unchanged. Now when it became necessary, as in every wedded life it +must sooner or later, for her to appeal to his ultimate moral belief, +she was startled to find nothing with which she was in sympathy. A +cynic--or, indeed, her husband himself--would have assured her that it +was, after all, a question of standards merely, and that difference of +judgment was natural and inevitable, and that measured by his own +convictions Arthur was quite well enough. Her answer to such a +proposition would have been that there was but one standard, and that +what differed from that were not moral principles at all, but excuses +for immoral obliquity. + +Outwardly, it is true, there was little in her husband's life of which +Edith could complain. He accompanied her to church, and if he quizzed +the preacher after returning home, she was ready to excuse this as the +natural result of a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. He allowed her +to do as she chose in the matter of charity work, and he even refrained +from going to his studio on Sunday, a sacrifice whose magnitude she had +no means of estimating, and which she therefore thought would be +continuous. It was when some ethical question arose between them that +Edith was disquieted, feeling sometimes as if she were looking into +black deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most +sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only +her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude +were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; +and Edith found argument impossible with one who denied her every +premise. + +His old acquaintances found in Arthur Fenton a change more subtle but +none the less distasteful. It was a trait of his nature to assume the +character he was half unconsciously acting, as a player may between the +scenes still feel the personality he is simulating upon the stage; and +there was about Fenton when he came in contact with the Pagans, a vague +air of remonstrance and disapproval, even when he was as bold as ever +in his own cynical utterances. + +"An expression of virtuous indignation isn't becoming in you, Fenton," +Rangely said to him one day. "Especially in a discussion which you +started yourself by the most shocking piece of wickedness I ever +heard." + +And among all the Pagans there existed a yet unspoken feeling that +Fenton was ceasing to be one of them. + +On returning from Helen's, Edith found her husband still engaged with +Dr. Ashton, but as soon as the latter had gone Arthur came to her room. + +"Well," he said, sinking leisurely into a chair. "Do you feel any +milder? Have you had your dinner?" + +"Yes," she returned, not leaving her seat on the opposite side of the +room. "I have been dining with Mrs. Ashton." + +"What!" cried Arthur, as if a bomb had exploded at his feet. Then he +sank back into his languid position. "So she has told you," he remarked +carelessly. + +"Yes, she has told me. Did you know, Arthur, when you brought us +together, that she was living under a false name, and under false +pretenses?" + +"I knew certainly," replied her husband with a coolness that marked his +inward irritation, "that her legal name was Ashton. I have still to +learn that she is living under false pretenses." + +"Is it not false," retorted Edith, with difficulty controlling her +voice, her indignation increasing with every word, "to pass as widow, +to live separated from her husband?" + +"Oh, false? Why, in your stiff, conventional definition of the word +that calls the letter every thing, the spirit nothing, I dare say it is +false; but what of that? She has a right to do as she pleases, has she +not?" + +Edith drew herself back in her chair and looked at him across the dimly +lighted chamber. It is but justice to her husband to consider that he +could not dream of the anguish she suffered. It was, as he so often +said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, +even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply +high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was +neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which +she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of +right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous +lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter +than the knowledge that the truth was not sacred to the man she loved. +Her husband's words pierced her like a dagger. It was some minutes +before she answered him. He rose moodily, lit a cigar at the gas jet +and sat down again before she broke the silence. + +"Arthur," she said in a voice which was sad and full of the solemnity +of deep feeling, "have you no regard for truth?" + +"Truth!" retorted he. "To go back to Pilate's conundrum, 'What is +truth?' If you mean a strict and fantastic adherence to facts and to +stiff conventional rules, no, I haven't the slightest regard for truth. +If you mean the eternal verities as a man's own nature and the occasion +interpret them, yes, I have the highest." + +"But that is only a confusion of words, Arthur. What do you mean by +'eternal verities' if not adherence to facts? The eternal verities +cannot be whatever it pleases any one to say. Doesn't all human +intercourse depend upon faith in one another that we will adhere to +facts? Even if you do not look at the right and the wrong, there are +surely reasons enough why the truth should be sacred." + +Her husband whiffed his cigar, idly blowing a succession of graceful +rings. + +"You are quite a metaphysician. Did you have a pleasant dinner?" + +"But, Arthur," Edith persisted, ignoring his attempt to break away, +according to his habit, from a discussion which did not please him, +"but, Arthur, do you think it right for Mrs. Greyson--Mrs. Ashton, I +mean, to live so?" + +"Right? Oh, that is the same old question in another shape. Mr. Candish +will answer all those theological riddles; it is his business to. They +don't interest me." + +He threw away his half smoked cigar, dusted his coat sleeve of a stray +fleck of ash, settled his cravat before the glass, and humming a tune +walked towards his wife, his hands clasped behind him. + +"We do not agree, Edith," he said with cold deliberation, "and unless +you broaden your views, I am afraid we never shall. You are a dozen +decades behind the day, and are foolish enough to take all your church +teaches you in earnest. Religion should no more be taken without salt +than radishes. The church inculcates it to excuse its own existence, +but you certainly are reasonable enough to outgrow this old-fashioned +Puritanism." + +"Arthur," was her answer, "we do not agree, and if you wait for me to +come to your standards, I am afraid you are right in saying that we +never shall; and, indeed, I hope you are right. It makes me more +unhappy than you can think," she continued, her eyes swimming with +bitter tears, "that we are so far apart on what I must believe to be +vital points; on truths which I believe, Arthur, with my whole soul--as +you would, too, had you not carefully educated yourself into a doubt +which cannot make you better or happier." + +She had risen as she spoke, and stood facing him, her pure, pale face +confronting his with a look of pathos which touched him despite +himself. She came a step nearer, and put her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, Arthur!" she pleaded, "I love you, and how can I help mourning +that you wrong your better nature; that you resist the impulses of your +own best self?" + +He yielded to her caresses in silence. He remembered that Helen had +used this same phrase. + +"Women always appeal to one's best self," he commented inly, with a +mental shrug, "which means a man's inclination to do whatever a woman +asks of him." + +But he kissed his wife's lips, and said, tolerantly: + +"We will talk it over some other time, my dear. We are both tired +to-night. But you are right, I suppose, as you always are." + +And she loosened her arms from his neck, recognizing that he had put +her appeal aside and waived the whole matter. + + + + +XXIX. + +A NECESSARY EVIL. + Julius Caesar; ii.--2. + + +At the St. Filipe Club, somewhere in the small hours of that same +night, half-a-dozen members were lingering. One was at the piano, +recalling snatches from various composers, the air being clouded alike +with music and smoke wreaths. + +"I think you fellows are hard on Fenton," the musician protested, in +response to some remark of Ainsworth's. "I don't see what he's done to +make you all so down on him." + +"It isn't any thing that he has done," Tom Bently replied, "it is what +he has become. He has developed an entirely new side of his nature, and +a deucedly unpleasant one, too." + +"I always had a mental reservation on Fenton," remarked another. "He +was always insisting that his soul was his own, don't you know; and +when a man keeps that up I always conclude that he has his private +doubts on the subject; or if he hasn't, I have." + +"That's about the case with all the musical rowing we've been having +for the last year or two; every musician has been in a fever lest he +should be thought to be truckling to somebody." + +"What rubbish all this concert business is," remarked Tom. "In Boston a +concert interests a little _clique_ of people, and another bigger +_clique_ pretend to be interested. The nonsense that is talked +about music here is nauseating. The public doesn't really care any +thing about it. In Boston a concert is given in Music Hall; but in +Paris it is given in the whole city. It is an event there, not a +trifling incident." + +"What do you know about music?" retorted the player, clashing a furious +discord with his elbow as he turned towards the speaker. "I'll attend +to you presently. Now I want to know about Fenton. What has he done +that you are all blackguarding him?" + +"I think he's got a creed," said Ainsworth, scowling and smiling +together, according to his wont. "I hate to charge a man with any thing +so black, but I think Fenton's wife has made him take a creed, and a +pretty damned narrow one at that." + +"By Jove!" the musician observed, solemnly. "It's too bad. Fenton is a +mighty bright fellow, and no end obliging." + +"If it's only a creed," swore Bently, "what's all this fuss about? +Every body has a creed, hasn't he? A man's temperament is his creed." + +"It isn't his having a creed that I object to," remarked Grant Herman; +"it is the question of his sincerity that troubles me. If he has taken +up some collection of dogmas merely to please his wife--who seems a +very sweet, quiet body--that is of course against him; but if he +believes it, I don't see why we should object." + +"Believes it!" sniffed Ainsworth, in great contempt. "That is worse +than any thing I've said. I don't think Fenton is quite such an idiot +as that comes to. The idea of his believing in Puritanism! Oh, good +Lord!" + +"Puritanism," Bently threw in irrelevantly, and because he liked the +sound of it, "Puritanism is the preliminary rottenness of New England. +If he is struck with that by all means let him go; the further the +better." + +"Isn't it his night for the Pagans this month?" somebody inquired. + +"Yes," returned Bently, "but I took the liberty of going to him and +asking if he would let me take it this turn. I hope you fellows don't +mind." The talk thus flowed on in a desultory fashion amid ever +thickening clouds of tobacco smoke, and Grant Herman, sitting for the +most part quiet, had a whimsical idea in looking at his +half-extinguished cigar. Certain excellent cigars, his thoughts ran, +have a way of burning sluggishly about the middle, and without actually +going out, yet need to be relighted; and in the same way a man's life +goes on better for the kindling flame of a fresh attachment in middle +life. He fell into reverie, thinking of Helen and of Ninitta. He had +not seen the Italian since her flight, but from Mrs. Greyson he had +learned the story of the finding and recovery of the fugitive; and his +heart kindled with gratitude toward the woman who had prevented +consequences which he should have fruitlessly regretted. He became so +absorbed in his thoughts that only the entrance of Fred Rangely aroused +him. + +"Hallo, Rangely," the new comer was greeted, "where do you come from at +this time of night?" + +"Oh, from the office of the Daily Day-before-yesterday. I had an +article in, and I wanted to read the proof. I can stand any thing in +the world better than I can endure a compositor's blunders. Do any of +you know Dr. Ashton?" + +"I do," somebody answered. "What of him?" + +"Rather clever fellow, wasn't he?" + +"Why, yes; I think he is. He's rather odd sometimes. What about him?" + +"Dead." + +"Nonsense! I saw him myself not three hours ago, posting a letter in +the box opposite his office." + +"He is dead, though. Heart disease. They just got the news at the +_Advertiser_ office." + +"Where was he?" + +"In his office. The night porter of the building heard him fall against +the door. They say he must have died without a struggle." + + + + +XXX. + +HOW CHANCES MOCK. + II Henry IV.; in.--I. + + +Early on the following forenoon Helen took her way to the studio. She +was in unusually good spirits that day, for no especial reason that she +could have told, although indeed it is possible that the prospect of +meeting Grant Herman may have subtly contributed to the buoyancy of her +mood. + +She walked briskly through the bracing morning across the Common, her +mind full of bright fancies. A thin column of smoke arose from the +chimney of the lodge in the deer-park, rising straight in the clear +air, and cheerfully suggestive that some tiny family, not too large for +the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer +themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a +picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck +sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and +now and then glancing at his wife over his spectacles. + +In this joyous mood she came to the studio. A sudden thought darted +through her mind, with no apparent connection, of the talk of the night +previous, and for an instant her face clouded; but the exhilaration of +the morning and the reaction from the sad, overstrained state in which +her husband had left her, both helped her to throw off all mournful +thoughts. Ninitta had not arrived, and Mrs. Greyson busied herself +about the bas-relief, preparing for work. Suddenly the tap of Grant +Herman sounded upon her door. + +"Good morning," he said, entering in response to her invitation. "I +knew by your step that you were in good spirits, and it gave me so much +pleasure to think you were glad to be back, that I had to come up." + +"I am in good spirits," she returned. "It is such a glorious morning, +and Ninitta has kept me away from my work long enough for me to be very +glad to return to it." + +"What of Ninitta?" he asked, a shadow coming over his fine face. "She +is not still with you?" + +"No, but she is coming to pose this morning, though I hardly think she +is strong enough." + +The sculptor took in his hands a bit of clay and began nervously to +model it into various shapes. + +"Why did you take her home, Mrs. Greyson?" he asked after a moment's +silence. + +"Because she needed me," Helen answered. "And besides," she added +hesitatingly, "I thought you would like her to be under my care." + +"Did you?" he returned eagerly. "I was more grateful to you than you +would let me tell you! I--" + +He broke off abruptly as if determined to keep himself from any +dangerous demonstrativeness. + +"Come into my studio a moment," said he, throwing down the clay he +held. "I have something to show you." + +Helen followed willingly, glad to avoid the chance of their being +interrupted by the arrival of Ninitta, whose jealousy might easily be +aroused again. The sculptor led the way through a couple of chambers, +bringing her out at the top of the stairs leading down in the corner of +his studio. The morning sun shone in through the window far up in the +side wall, tinged to rich colors by the stained glass which Herman had +set there. The statues and casts looked in the light coming from above +them, as if they had just emerged from garments of shadows which yet +lay fallen about their feet. Helen uttered an exclamation of +admiration. + +"How charming the studio is in this light," she said. "It is like +looking down into a ghost world." + +"It is a ghost world," was the response. "It has long been haunted, but +I had not supposed that any eyes but my own saw the wraiths which dwell +here." + +The vibratory quality in his voice warned her not to answer. She felt +that she stood upon the brink of a significant interview, yet she +lacked the resolution to turn back. + +She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor +following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she +wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from +Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not +pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent passion, and, +indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if +unmixed with some desire to escape from him. + +All sorts of artistic rubbish had accumulated in the little gallery; +broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored +marble, and the thousand objects which make up the _débris_ of a +sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung +dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the +white-plaster goddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small +antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids +danced in immortal glee. + +"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar +before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?" + +"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle +shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?" + +"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated. + +"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar-- +it is a Hymeneal altar, they say--and said I would pour a libation upon +it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough." + +He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more +definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away +into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast +down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored +marble, resting upon the altar. + +"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to +leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed +up ever since until--until recently." + +However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was +yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the +sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to +what the question might lead, she asked: + +"And recently?" + +"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and +meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me." + +He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since +the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion +in an abstracted, impersonal way. + +"To remind you?" she in turn echoed. + +"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, +and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair." + +She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch +her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund +Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face. + +"But you removed it here." + +"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this +world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves--the +amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was +too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of +sight." + +She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned +and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing +eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again +and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to +speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words: + +"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see +mirrored in it." + +"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly. + +"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is +worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible." + +"But facts are such achromatic glasses." + +To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling +stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the +sculptor carefully removed. + +A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and +of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of +broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head +and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling +with the limpness of death. About the noble, lifeless head were bent +and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly +destroyed. + +Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the +pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her +eyes. + +"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure. + +Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the +pedestal, and she saw the words: + + "I strew these opiate flowers + Round thy restless pillow." + +Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a +delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the +face of the tall form beside her. + +"But he is dead," she murmured at length. + +"It seems so," he assented. + +She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white. + +"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice +thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love +him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton--Dr. +Ashton." + +"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton, +Teuton's friend?" + +"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to +heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have +told you, but I could not bear--Oh," she cried, breaking off her +sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!" + +"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you +been told?" + +"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?" + +"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?" + +"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?" + +"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was +possible to soften the blow. "He is dead." + +"Dead!" + +Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a +lifeless warrior. + +A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing +of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more +that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when +confronted by the irremediable--as if some blame must be taken for the +acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the +responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to +question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. +Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late +aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of +his suffering she might more strongly--A sudden thought pierced her +like a knife. + +"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly. + +"Of heart disease." + +So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were +truth. + +"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta." + +When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. +Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone +out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which +resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing +of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it +before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, +like the life of him whose last act had been their forming: + + "DEATH FOILS THE GODS." + + + + +XXXI. + +HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast +that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead." + +"Dead!" she exclaimed. + +Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an +unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a +subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it +made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost +immoral. + +"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph +containing the announcement of Dr, Ashton's sudden death from heart +disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow +and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now." + +"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?" + +"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably +make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon." + +"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her +eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so--so--flippantly." + +"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you +should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of +it,--to you, that is; of course I should not in public." + +"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean--" + +"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as +ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will +took poison, poor old fellow." + +She sank back in her chair, white and trembling. + +"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if +Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier." + +"Providence is noted for close observance of the _lex talionis_" +sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that +functionary, so it really ought to have passed him by. It would +certainly have been more dignified." + +"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his +last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are +all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own +lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all +a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr. +Ashton--Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I +cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!" + +She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, +and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with +intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her. +He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues +of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table. + +"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the +sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough +of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things +to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will +use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking +people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all +a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of +view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant +Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to +obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superstitions. +There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston--and +for aught I know a hundred thousand--who believe, or, if you like, +disbelieve, as I do." + +"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad +to think of." + +"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me +as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them." + +She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The +sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, +and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned +her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her +husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her +power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote +herself wholly to duty. + +The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further +conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton +had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received +later in the day. + +"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in +confidence." + +The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be +outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note: + + +DEAR ARTHUR:-- + +I've a strong presentiment--and although I disbelieve in presentiments, +mine generally come true--that in about half an hour my obituary will +be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me +to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit +dramatically, and you've often assured me that that is the chief thing +to consider in this connection. I've contemplated such a possibility +long enough to have my affairs in order, and doubtless your wife will +have a mass or two said for the repose of my soul. If you ever have a +chance to do Helen a good turn, you may regard it as a personal favor +to my ghost to do it. I've left you my Diaz as a sort of propitiatory +sop. + +Yours, of course, as ever, W. A. + + +"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" Edith sobbed, breaking down again. "It is awful! +It is just as he always talked. It is as light as if he were going out +to drive." + +"Naturally," was the response. "If you fancy Will would cry baby at +death, you knew him far from as well as I did. How strange it is to +think of his being in the past tense, poor fellow. It was clever of him +to leave me his Diaz; I always coveted it." + +In the face of this, what was there for Edith to say. She was simply +numbed to silence, and horror at her husband for the time deadened all +sense of the shock of Dr. Ashton's death. It was not until later in the +day that she was able to think of Helen. + +"But, Arthur," she said then, "Mrs. Greyson?" + +"Well; what of Mrs. Greyson?" + +"I am going to see her." + +"After your last night's indignation?" + +"I may have been wrong," Mrs. Fenton said bravely, "I may have been +hard. I realize every day how little I am able to judge for other +people. Perhaps I am narrow, as you say. At least now her husband is +dead I can show her my sympathy; and since I know more of him, it does +not seem so strange that she left him." + +"They left each other," he responded to these contradictory words. "But +what can you say? The consolations of religion will hardly be +available, and Helen never pretended to love Ashton?" + +His tone wounded her, but she answered without a change of countenance: + +"The death of the man who has been her husband can never be indifferent +to any true woman. I shall not force her to listen to any religion she +does not wish to hear." + + + + +XXXII. + +A SYMPATHY OF WOE. + Titus Andronicus; iii.--I. + + +"I am afraid you will think me intrusive," was Edith's hesitating +greeting to Helen, "but I could not help coming. I thought you might +feel lonely." + +Helen looked at her for a moment with wistful eyes and trembling lips: +then she crossed swiftly to where her friend stood and kissed her. And +never could these two be so wholly separated or estranged again as to +efface the memory of all the meaning that this caress conveyed. The +word which Edith had used had been most happily chosen. Her woman's +instinct divined the loneliness which overwhelmed the widow, and this +proof of her sympathy was the passport to Mrs. Greyson's heart. +Loneliness was the feeling of which Helen was most of all conscious. +The death of even an indifferent acquaintance often may seem to +desolate the earth from its simple irremediableness, and much more does +the removal of one near to us make the world appear half a void. + +Helen had been sitting alone before Edith came, reviewing her past and +drearily speculating of her future. She went over the days of her +wedded life; her innocent, introspective childhood, in which she had +dreamed and read, dwelling in a world apart; alone but for the ideal +creations of her books or her own quick fancy. She had married knowing +as little of life or of love, as when, a lonely child, she had spelled +out the tale of Prince Camaralzaman, and wondered what the divine +passion really was, or if indeed it had existence, outside of fairy +lore. + +The torch of death throws its glare backward, and its funeral light +showed many a past long since forgotten, but now revealed with new and +distorting vividness. Helen remembered the baby which had lived but +long enough to open its eyes with a smile that seemed of recognition, +and then faded back into the unknown whence it had come. A throb of +tenderness for the dead father moved the mother's heart as she thought +of her baby, so little time hers, and so long asleep under the +marguerites of a grave over the sea. She had suffered much from the +selfishness, the dominant self-will, the distorted views of life of Dr. +Ashton; and these things she even now could not forget; but, too, she +thought of him as the father of her child, her baby ever dear and +living in memory. + +She reflected, too, of the men she had known, and especially of Arthur +Fenton. Her nature had need of some one upon whom to expend its +treasures, and she realized that had she not felt in the artist a +certain insincerity, he might have awakened her love. He had been +appreciative, sympathetic, brilliant; and, too, he had called largely +upon her patience and forbearance, than which there is no surer way to +win a generous woman's affection. Yet always some note rang false to +her fine ear, and to the weakness of his nature she had never been +wholly blind, although not until his marriage had given him a certain +distance had she realized how deep and unsparing her knowledge of him +really was. + +Of Grant Herman she would not think. Thoughts of him arose again and +again in her mind, but she resolutely put them down. Some secret stir +of mingled pain and joy told her too well that the sculptor had +awakened the first love of her life. But at least with her husband, +however unloved, lying yet unburied, she would not dwell upon the +passion of another. + +She took Edith's hand, and the two women sat down side by side, +shedding tears together, rather from a sense of the general woe and +bitterness of life than for poignant grief for the present calamity. It +was not much they said at first. Neither was of the talkative order of +women, finding comfort in the mere utterance of words. They grew +together, sustained by giving and receiving tenderness, and each +tacitly asking and according forgiveness for unfriendly feelings in the +past. It is probable, too, that Edith, heavy with the disappointments +of her married life, found relief in being able to weep unrestrainedly, +even though the true source of her tears was not the obvious one. + +"I never loved him," Helen said of her husband. "After we separated we +became friends, rather because of a common past when we were both +strangers here, than from any fitness for each other. But he was once +my husband." + +Her friend pressed her hand in silence. + +"We had a child," Helen spoke again; "a little daughter. She only lived +one day. If she had not gone it might have been different. At least we +should have kept on together. My poor little baby!" + +Edith's eyes were full of tears, as she answered softly: + +"I hope you will let me say that I believe she is waiting for you some +where." + +"She must be," the mother responded quickly. "Whatever one doubts, one +must surely believe that. I could not lose her! She is mine, wherever +in the universe she may be." + +"Yes," was all Edith ventured in reply. "I am sure of it." + +They gave no heed to the fading day, but sat with clasped hands until +twilight had gathered, and it occurred at last to Mrs. Fenton that her +husband and dinner must be awaiting her. Helen had been telling of her +plans. + +"I shall go abroad," she said, "I want to study in Rome; I want to meet +great men; to be influenced by great works. I have been thinking of it +for a long time, and now it seems as if some ties that held me here are +broken, for we often obey claims which we yet deny. And besides," she +added, in a lower tone, "it is a flight from temptation. I am in danger +here." + +"In danger?" Edith asked wonderingly. + +"Only from myself," was the reply, "but that peril is sufficiently +imminent to make me afraid." + +Edith questioned no further, and to the true import of these words she +had no clue. She looked at her friend a moment inquiringly and +musingly, but as Helen did not continue, she rose to go. + +"I must get home now," she said, in a tone so tender that it seemed to +beg pardon for this abandonment. "Arthur is waiting for me and his +dinner; and if he doesn't get the latter at least, I won't answer for +the consequences. Mr. Calvin was with him when I came away." + +"Mr. Peter Calvin!" exclaimed the other, in some surprise. + +"Yes; he has bought one of Arthur's pictures, and he wants Arthur to +propose him at the St. Filipe Club, I believe." + +She spoke in perfect ignorance of the tumult her words excited in her +hearer's mind. Long after Edith was gone Helen sat looking out into the +darkening sky and thinking of Arthur Fenton. She had heard him talk too +often about Mr. Peter Calvin not to know what was implied by this new +friendship. Mr. Peter Calvin had been for years the head and front of +Boston Philistinism in art. He had been the patron of subservient +artists; the chairman of committees for the purchase of public statues; +an elegant writer upon such live and timely topics as _Plaster +Casting among the Egyptians, Notes upon Abyssinian Statues_, while +his monograph upon the question, _What Was the Original Cost of the +Venus de Milo?_ had by his flatterers been pronounced the +masterpiece of all known art essays for power and critical research. +His was a prominent name upon the covers of dilettante art journals; it +was he who effectually crushed young and too daringly independent +artists; who repressed impertinent originality; who headed the hosts of +conventionality against individuality or genius which held itself above +the established canons of antiquated tradition. He was the High Priest +of Boston conservatism; the presiding genius of Philistia; and until +the St. Filipe Club entered a protest against him by refusing to admit +him to membership, his power had scarcely received a blow. + +Tom Bently always insisted, with much profanity, that Mr. Peter Calvin +was a joke. + +"He writes with tremendous pomposity," Tom would say, "and he is in no +end of societies for molly-coddling art. He goes on, too, about the +plaster casts at that hospital for decrepit gods, the Art Museum, as if +his whole soul was in the plaster barrels of the Greeks. But bless your +soul! It's only his little joke. He doesn't really mean any thing by +it. He's only a stupendous joke himself." + +The Pagans, so far as they were to be regarded as an entity, +represented the protest of the artistic soul against shams. They stood +for sincerity above everything; for utter honesty in art, in life, in +manners and morals alike. To them Philistinism was the substitution of +convention for conviction. For the spirit of imitation, of blind +subservience to authority, the Pagans had no tolerance. While they held +themselves always open to conviction, they refused assent to any thing +which was offered them _ex cathedra_; they devoted themselves to +art with a passion of enthusiasm which was in itself the highest +expression of their principles. That they seemed often iconoclastic was +in reality less the result of their hatred of authority than the +prevalence of unreasoning, and therefore by their standards necessarily +insincere, adherence to established formulae. Dogmas they hated, not +because they were popularly received, but because although they had +been vital realities to their originators, they had become in time mere +lifeless forms, held in reverence by blind devotees long after the soul +had gone out of them. + +In art especially the Pagans demanded the most absolute surrender of +self to truth; and it should be added that they defined truth exactly +as Helen did, "that which one sincerely believes." They had no +condemnation too severe or sweeping for the artist who worshipped the +golden gods of Philistia by following popular conventions at the +expense of his honest art ideals. It is not impossible that they +carried this feeling to extremes sometimes, suspecting every thing +which was stamped with popular approval, but in the main at least their +standard was of the highest and their lives conformed well to it. +Measured by the creeds they rejected, they might often enough be found +wanting; tried by their own, there had never been an apostate among +them until the defection of Fenton. + +No one had been more bitter and outspoken in his condemnation of Mr. +Calvin and of what he represented than Arthur Fenton. Many a time he +had entertained Helen with stories of the presumption and the ignorance +of this man whom now he was receiving into his friendship, or, more +properly, in whose train of sycophants he had taken his place. + +Helen could not forgive him. Leaving dinner untasted, she sat with +burning cheeks in the darkness, mourning over the apostacy of the man +who had been her warmest friend. + + + + +XXXIII. + +A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1. + + +Dr. Ashton had been in his grave several weeks. Life had gone on much +as usual in Boston, with the bickerings of small souls the gaping +imitations of the mob, the carping of the self-appointed critics, and +the earnest endeavor of the honest and inspired workers, who leaven the +lump of modern civilization. + +Among the Pagans the nomination of Mr. Calvin to the St. Filipe Club by +Arthur Fenton had been received with a bitterness born of a feeling of +outraged confidence. They were to-night to meet in Tom Bently's studio, +and Fenton, who had no intention of being present, was yet keenly +conscious of what the talk there concerning him would be. He was glum +and moody at dinner, and Edith, who knew that this was Pagan night, +watched him wistfully. She hoped to win him away from friends and +acquaintances who seemed to her dangerous. Perfectly honest and ready +to lay down her life for her husband, she was yet urging him into paths +which he felt it to be degradation to walk, since they led him away +from sincerity. She had no means of knowing how his sudden championship +of Mr. Calvin was regarded. Her own relations to art had been those of +pretty amateurishness. She had been bred to believe in conventionality, +and the flavor of Bohemianism alarmed and repelled her. + +To-night she had put on her most becoming dress, she had ordered the +dinner with especial reference to her husband's tastes, and she exerted +herself to be as entertaining and attractive as lay in her power. She +even allowed herself the innocent ruse of delaying dinner a little, +that it might be later before Arthur could be ready to go out; and when +the answer to her timid hope that he was to be at home that evening, +was in the affirmative, her foolish, tender heart fluttered with +delighted hope that she was influencing him to shake off his irregular +associations. + +He was rather gloomy and silent all the evening, brooding of the +Pagans, from whose meetings he had never before been absent, and of +Helen, and what she would think. Edith tried all her arts and wiles to +make him forget the pleasure he was losing, and she partly succeeded, +since her attentions and endearments chimed in with the train of +thought by which he was endeavoring to prove to his own satisfaction +that he was the most virtuous of men, and that his swearing allegiance +to Philistinism, was a noble example of a transgressor willing to +confess and abjure his faults. He accepted his wife's attentions as +eminently fitting under the circumstances, and could he have forgotten +the Pagans and Helen, he might almost have been comfortable. More than +once in the old days he had found it hard to face Mrs. Greyson's clear +eyes, which saw so readily through shams, and now while he was able to +work himself into a defensive attitude towards all others of his old +friends, he felt a horrible humiliation in the consciousness that Helen +was sure to know of his course and to understand all its weakness. + +It occurred to him, too, that Helen had avoided him of late. Since the +death of Dr. Ashton, he had scarcely seen her, although she was often +with his wife. He knew from Edith that she was soon to go abroad, and +he wondered if the wish to escape him had any share in bringing her to +this decision. + +He tormented himself with speculations and memories until he could +endure it no longer. He must have comfort; his wounded self-sufficiency +craved the balm of approval, and although he was contemptuously +conscious of his own weakness, he turned to Edith to seek admiration +and praise. + +"So you are glad that I am not going to the Pagans to-night," he said +to her, as they sat before the fire, for the evening was damp and +chilly. + +"Very glad," she answered, leaving her chair to come and sit upon a low +hassock by his knee. "It was so good of you." + +She made a beautiful picture as she sat there, her long dress of +cardinal and stone gray silk gathered in waves about her, the +Elizabethan ruffle setting off her shapely head and slender neck, while +the soft, yellow old lace showed how clear was the tone of her skin. +Her pure, sweet face, with its appealing dark eyes, was turned upward +to her husband's, in an expression at once wistful and full of love. +Edith had always a highbred air, and to-night her attitude and +expression added the one charm of warmth and softness needed to make +her most lovely and moving. + +"You doubtless have some excellent reason," remarked Arthur smiling +down on her. + +"I am afraid of them; they are in arms against every thing that is +acknowledged to be good." + +"And yet they are the most honest men I ever knew," he returned, half +musing, and with a little pleased sense of his magnanimity in saying +this at a moment when they were probably abusing him. + +"I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps they may be honest, but I am sure it is +not good for you to be with them. They are so sure that their false +views of life are true." + +The little sting in the implication that he was not able to resist the +influence which had surrounded him was forgotten in the satisfactory +view which his wife took of the real value of the judgments of the +Pagans. He knew how little she understood them. With every premise upon +which her conclusions were founded he disagreed, yet he said to himself +that Edith was right; that the Pagans were quite too infallible about +every thing. They would have him grope along poor and unknown, he +argued with himself, simply for the sake of standing in the position of +chronic rebuke to established authorities; with only now and then a +chance to get a hearing upon what they assumed to be the true theory of +art. What they believed--ah! there after all was the weakness of the +whole. What ground had they for their belief? Did he himself really +believe any thing, or had he a right to assert in any matter a positive +conviction? And even if they or he asserted never so strongly, what +sort of a test of truth was that? After all the Philistines, the +Calvins, were as likely to be right as were a set of discontented if +not disappointed artists; men whose natures would never allow them to +be satisfied with any existing state of things, since it would +inevitably differ from their dreamy ideals. And it was certainly true +that the weight of authority and of numbers was with the Philistines. + +"Perhaps you are right, Edith," he said aloud. "I hope so at least, for +they are probably indignant enough with me." + +"With you? Why?" + +"Oh, they choose to think I went over to Philistia when I proposed Mr. +Calvin for the St. Filipe. I'm sure I don't see why I haven't a right +to propose whom I please." + +"But Mr. Calvin, Arthur," responded Edith, who regarded that gentleman +as one of the art gods of Boston. "I should think any body would be +proud to propose him. Why, he is one of the most distinguished men in +the city." + +Her husband did not answer for a moment. He looked into the fire and +watched his inner consciousness adapt itself to this view of the case, +which than himself no one had condemned more bitterly. Yet it was the +theory upon which it was necessary to rest did he expect to arrive at +any comfort in the course of supporting Mr. Calvin, which he had +already pursued so far that retreat was impossible. Yes, he assured +himself, he could even accept this. And why not? Did not common opinion +confirm it; and however much common opinion might be sneered at, it was +surely the voice of the common sense of the world. + +He looked down at his wife, who looked back smiling proudly. He +realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she +was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to +beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; +and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his +rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He +realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his +convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin and his +following. He recalled Helen's remark that what is called being honest +with one's self is often the subtlest form of hypocrisy, and he did not +spare himself a single pang of self-humiliation and contempt; and then, +when he was full to the throat with self-loathing, he let his sensuous, +self-loving nature devise excuse and soothe his wounded vanity. + +He looked into the fire with a smile of mingled bitterness and +complacency, half ashamed, half amused at the view which introspection +gave him. + +But whenever into his musings came the thought of Helen it rankled like +a poisoned barb. For he secretly believed that Helen loved him, and +although if a man humiliates himself in the eyes of the woman he loves +it is as bitter as death; yet to prove unworthy in the sight of her who +hopelessly loves him, contains a more subtly envenomed shaft, which +wounds that most sensitive spot in a sensuous man's nature--his vanity. + + + + +XXXIV. + +HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY. + Love's Labor's Lost; i.--I. + + +That evening Helen too sat at home, alone and full of resistless +thoughts. + +She had put the finishing touches to the _Flight of the Months_, +completing the work with scarcely less success than at first, and in +three days she was to sail for Europe. She had not allowed Dr. Ashton's +death to interrupt her work, the necessity of avoiding unpleasant +gossip which would be provoked by the disclosure of her relations with +the dead man, being sufficient reason why she should not change her +outward life. She quietly and rapidly completed the preparations for +departure, and already the feeling of severance from familiar scenes +cast its sadness over her. + +Leaving the studio to-day, she had gone down to speak with Herman, whom +she wished to take the responsibility of the firing of the bas-relief. +When she had finished this errand she turned to a figure in terra-cotta +whose freshness showed that it had but recently come from the kiln. + +"What is this?" she asked. "I have never seen it." + +"It is a Pasht," the sculptor returned. "I modeled it as a wedding +present for Arthur Fenton, but luckily I did not get it done in time." + +"Why 'luckily?'" + +"Because I should be sorry to have given him any thing so closely +connected with the Pagans, as things have turned out." + +Helen did not need to ask explanations of these words, although she did +not know how complete the breach between Fenton and his former friends +had become. + +"I am glad I am going away," she exclaimed with a sigh. + +"Going away?" he echoed, dropping his modeling tools. + +"Yes, I sail Saturday." + +She spoke with perfect composure, yet her glance was averted. She was +painfully conscious of having concealed the fact from him until this +moment. + +He came towards her, his eyes fixed upon her face. + +"What does this mean?" he demanded, almost fiercely. "Why do you go?" + +"I mean to study in Rome," she replied faintly. "I always told you that +I hoped to go some day." + +"But why do you go now? Why have you concealed it from me? Are you +afraid of my--of my love? If any one must go it should be I; I have no +right to drive you away." + +"You are not driving me away; I--it is better that I should go." + +"But why go now? Now you are free, and I have a right to claim you." + +"No," Helen said in a voice suddenly firm, but which yet showed her +inward agitation, "no; there is Ninitta. I have suffered too much +myself to be willing to try to come to happiness over any woman's +heart. It is better that I should go." + +"Ninitta!" Herman burst out. "She has no claim; she will not even care; +she--" + +"No," interrupted Helen, laying her hand upon his arm. "You cannot say +that; you know it is not true. You can see as well as I that Ninitta is +pining her life out over your neglect. We are not free to break her +heart when you yourself taught her to love." + +"I have never been unkind to her," he said, a little defiantly; "except +perhaps when she acted like a mad woman and broke your figures." + +"In love," returned Helen, smiling faintly, and glad to take refuge in +generalities, "sins of commission, as compared with the deadly sin of +omission, are mere venial offenses. It is not what you have done, but +what you have left undone." + +"But what can I do? I cannot force myself to love her?" + +"You have made her love you." + +"But I outgrew her centuries ago." + +"The price of growth is always to outgrow," replied Helen. + +She was struggling hard to keep the conversation away from dangerous +levels. She felt that she must seem heartless, but none the less she +went on bravely. + +"And after all what is outgrowing? It is a question of moods, of--" + +But her courage failed her. Her voice trembled, she turned away from +him and walked down the studio, stopping here and there as if to +examine a cast or a figure, invisible through the tears which welled up +in her eyes. The sculptor followed close behind her, until she put her +hand upon the great Oran rug which hung before the door. + +"Then you leave me," he broke out bitterly. "You make Ninitta a pretext +for escaping me. You might have told me that you did not care for me. I +would not have molested you." + +She turned to him suddenly, and he was startled by the whiteness of her +face, for she was pale to the very lips. + +"Do you think it is easy for me to go," she cried passionately, "to +give you up when I love you! You should help me, not make it harder. +Isn't it better to part now while we have nothing to regret than to +live with a wrong between us?" + +"But what wrong will be between us? Surely that boyish mistake need not +blight both our lives." + +"Can we help it?" she asked sadly. + +"We will help it! Are we merely puppets then, to be bandied about +helplessly? I told her I loved her; it is no longer true, and why is +the pledge that followed binding?" + +"It is not simply that you gave her your word," Helen returned, +struggling bravely with herself; "it is that you made her love you, and +that obligation you can never shake off. Oh, it is because you are too +noble to take a woman's love and then trample upon it, that I love +you--that you fill my heart." + +She poured out the words, her eyes blazing, her splendid form dilated, +her arms involuntarily extended towards him. He took her into his +embrace; not hastily, not wildly; but with a slow, irresistible movement +that had in it something of solemnity. He showered kisses upon her +hair, her forehead, her lips; he pressed her to his bosom as if he +would absorb her into himself. + +"My darling, my darling," he said, in a hoarse, fiery whisper, "I +cannot give you up! Think how lonely I am; how I love you!" + +She put up her face and kissed him with a long, clinging kiss; then she +freed herself from his arms. They stood face to face, her eyes +appealing, until his glance fell before hers. + +"Yes," he said in a voice so low that she bent forward to listen, "yes; +you must be right." + +"I am right," she responded sadly, "I have fought against it too much +not to be sure of that." + +"It is an odd way of proving my love for you to give you up," continued +Herman, with a new accent of bitterness in his voice. "Oh, the folly of +that boyish passion!" + +He strode away from her, as she leaned panting against a modeling +stand. The darkness was gathering so rapidly that when he turned back +his face came out of the gloom like a surprise. + +"My reward," he said, "must be that you love me; but that very reward +makes it harder to deserve it. I am sure that we would be wiser and +happier if we had no scruples to hamper us." + +"But we have," was her response; "to take your own words, we are not +mere puppets." + +Again he walked away from her, and for a few moments there was no sound +but that of his heavy footsteps, which seemed to make the silence more +solemn and penetrating. + +"I will do whatever you ask," he burst out suddenly. "I will even marry +her if you wish." + +"I ask nothing. It is not I but your convictions you should follow. I +am not even able to advise. Your own instincts are better and nobler +than any thing I can say to you." She stopped and choked back a sob. +"Oh, Grant, it is so hard!" she cried. + +She had never used that name before, and it so thrilled him with joy +and pain that he made an impulsive movement as if once more to take her +in his arms; but she lifted her hand with a gesture of negation. + +"I have been tempted as well as you," she continued, "I have said to +myself a thousand times that love justified all, and that these +theories were too fine spun. I could not keep the thought of you down +even when I first knew I was a widow, and I said over and over to +myself that now no one stood between us. I knew it was no use, but I +lay awake in the night and tried to prove to myself that Ninitta had no +claim,--but, oh! you are too much to me for me to be willing that you +should do what we both know is wrong and cruel. I can endure anything +better than that you should not always be my ideal; and I should hate +myself if I tempted you to wrong." + +"What I am," he said brokenly, moved most of all by the tears upon her +cheeks, "is nothing. You have beaten this temptation, not I; I would +have done any thing if you had encouraged me. I am a very ordinary +mortal, Helen, when one really knows my littleness." + +She smiled through her tears at him. + +"You shall not abuse yourself;" she replied. "I will not have it." + +There was not much further said between them. They remained together +until the dusk filled the studio, and it looked again like a +ghost-world as on the morning they two had come into it to see the dead +form modeled in red clay. Perhaps it was upon this remembrance that at +length Mrs. Greyson said: + +"Will you give me, before I go to Europe, that figure you showed me?" + +"I will give you any thing you ask," he answered; "I wish I might add +myself. Is it right," he added, with sudden fire, "for me to tie myself +to that model girl? Am I worth nothing better than that?" + +"You are worth the best woman on earth; but--oh I cannot argue it, but +I feel it; I am sure that it cannot be right to deny the claim which +you yourself gave her, Grant. I know by myself what it would be to lose +you." + +"But she is not the woman you are. Her feelings are those of an +ignorant peasant; she--" + +Helen laid her fingers lightly upon his lips. + +"No," she said, "don't go on. We have said it all once. You are trying +to out-argue your own convictions. I must go now. It is almost dark +already." + +She took a step or two towards the door and again laid her hand upon +the rug _portiêre_. Then as by a common impulse they turned +towards each other, and once more she was locked in his embrace. + +And to-night, sitting alone in the dark, with dilated eyes, Helen felt +still the ecstasy of that moment, but murmured to herself: + +"It must not be again; I will not see him alone." + + + + +XXXV. + +PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP. + Othello; ii.--I. + + +Tom Bently's studio that night was a sight well worth seeing. + +Tom had two rooms in Studio Building, opening into each other by +folding doors, which were never known to be shut. The walls were hung +with old French tapestry, its rich, soft colors harmonizing exquisitely +with some dull-red velvet draperies from Venice. Bits of armor, some of +them very splendid, were disposed here and there, while a wealth of +_bric-à-brac_ enriched every nook and corner. In the doorway hung +an old altar-lamp of silver, with a cup of ruby glass, and from various +points depended other lamps of Moresque and antique shapes. A pair of +tall brass flambeau-stands, spoil of a Belgian cathedral sacked a +couple of centuries ago, upheld the heaviest candles Tom had been able +to find, which smoked and flared most picturesquely. + +Bently had traveled widely, every where picking up graceful and +artistic trifles--stuffs from Algiers; rugs from Persia and Turkey; +weapons from Tripoli and India and Tunis; musical instruments from +Egypt and Spain; antiques from Greece and Germany and Italy; and +pottery from every where. His studio was the envy of all his brother +artists, although he himself growled about it profanely, declaring that +he had so much rubbish about him that he could not work, yet +nevertheless declining to part with a single object. + +"I ought to clear the place out," he would say. "My pictures are +getting to look like advertisements of an old clo' shop, and if a man +doesn't change all his properties every year, the sapient critics say +he has become mannered. But I can't let them go; or rather they won't +let me go; they hang on like barnacles to an old hulk." + +The Pagans were six that night, Fenton's place being unfilled. The +delinquency of the absent artist was a good deal commented upon, yet +always as if an effort were made to keep the subject out of the +conversation. It came up again and again, and that not unnaturally, +since it was necessarily in every man's thoughts. + +"He's a mellifluous coward, now isn't he?" Bently remarked, with his +usual picturesque disregard of the conventional use of words. "The +average American couldn't have been more sneaking." + +"He was always afraid of the rough grain of life," Rangely responded. +"I always told him he was a born coward. He could never serve any cause +that wouldn't give him a uniform of broadcloth. But he was born for +something better than tagging after Calvin and his tribe, heaven +knows." + +"Bah!" went on Bently, "the bad taste of it! I could get over every +thing else, but the bad taste of proving a sneak, and giving up every +thing worth while." + +Somebody threw in a quotation from Browning's _Lost Leader_, and +then Grant Herman, trying to turn the conversation, took up Bently's +remark. + +"You're right, Tom," he said, "in your view of taste. Taste is +sublimated morality. It is the appreciation of the proportion and +fitness of all things in the universe, and of course it is above simple +morality, for that is founded upon a partial view. Taste is the +universal, where a system of morals is the local." + +"Can't you say that of art?" asked Rangely. "I should think art is the +universal, where religion is the provincial. A religion expresses the +needs and the aspirations of a race or a country, while art embodies +the aspirations and attributes of humanity." + +"Good!" Bently responded. "That is better than I should have said it, +but it's my belief, all the same. There are so few people who have +imagination enough even to understand what one means by saying that art +is the only thing in the world worth living for. Why, art is the +supreme expression of humanity; the apotheosis of all the best there is +in the race." + +"I don't see that," objected another. "Isn't religion the expression of +the longings of the soul, or whatever there is in us we call soul? I +can't say it well, but it seems to me you talk of religions, not +religion." + +"People seldom take the trouble to make that distinction. He who +attacks any of the religions is generally set down as striking at +religion itself." + +"Religion," returned Bently, "is the expression of fear, and nothing +else, if you sift it to the bottom. Knowledge kills so-called religion +as surely as it does those lower forms of belief which it is nowadays +the fashion to dub superstition. It is precisely the same feeling that +builds churches and that rhymes the country hag's charms. Fairies and +saints are double and twisted cousins, after all." + +"But religion," persisted the German, "is more than the expression of +fear; it is the embodiment of the aspirations of mankind; of the +instinct and desire for worship." + +"For worshipping something," amended Tom. "That is the same thing +differently phrased." + +"No, it isn't, either. To yearn for the higher is not to show that we +fear it, but that we long to grow like it. It is a confession of +incompleteness, of weakness, I grant you; but a thousand times no to +your calling it fear." + +"I confess to having been hasty, and modify my words so far as to say; +an expression of fear or weakness." + +"Is there then any shame in acknowledging weakness?" demanded the +German, pushing him as hard as he was able. "It certainly is honest." + +"Is there any shame to formulating fear?" retorted the other, deftly +evading him. + +"Then see how religion always appeals to art to help out its ultimate +expression," observed Rangely. + +"And how it has failed," added Bently, "when it has not had art to help +it. Puritanism tried to get on without art, and where is Puritanism? +You couldn't find a trace of it, if it hadn't come down on its +marrow-bones and begged art to build its churches, compose its music, +and regulate its rituals." + +"It is no more fair to say that," objected another Pagan, doggedly, +"than to say that art has gone to religion for help. Their accounts are +pretty evenly balanced." + +"Nonsense!" Rangely returned. "Art has never gained by being religious, +but by being art; but religion owes its hold largely to the help art +has given it." + +"And it has paid its debts by blackguarding art from every pulpit it +has builded for it." + +"As Fenton used to say," Ainsworth remarked, "art has been used as the +sugar-coating to the bitter pill of religion." + +"Oh, Fenton again," Bently exclaimed impatiently. "What did you bring +him up for? Who the devil would have thought Fenton would have turned +out so?" + +"I can tell you a piece of news," said Rangely. "The Election Committee +blackballed Calvin this afternoon." + +"Good!" cried they all; and some body added: "But Fenton said he'd +resign if Calvin wasn't elected." + +"Resign," echoed Rangely, "I guess he'll have to. He's been sent to +Coventry by half the Club now for that Graves affair." + +"The Graves affair?" some one queried. "What's that? What else has he +been doing? If a man starts to go to the devil, it does seem as if he +never could get ahead fast enough." + +"Miss Graves was going to buy one of Flackerman's pictures, and heaven +knows he needs the money; and Fenton, who has always pretended to be +Flack's friend, talked her into taking one of his instead; or rather he +got Calvin to go to her and do it. It was a stunning Flackerman, too; +and we were all rejoicing over his luck." + +"I would not be too ready to believe that story," Grant Herman said. "I +don't think Fenton's gone utterly to the bad all at once. He's living +expensively, they say, and possibly he let Calvin go to Miss Graves; +but I don't believe Arthur ever originated that sneaking scheme, and I +shouldn't be surprised if he never knew the rights of the case." + +"He's done what so many artists have been bullied into doing before," +Ainsworth observed. "If he has sold his birthright for a mess of +pottage, that is precisely what the patrons of art in this country +demand that every man shall do who comes here. I could tell you of a +dozen good fellows who've been spoiled in that way. I am far enough +outside to look on in an unbiased way; but they treat us architects in +the same fashion. Lots of the most rubbishy and conventional men we +have, started out to be fair and work from conviction; and they simply +had the choice between subservience and starvation, and cases of the +choice of death from starvation haven't been over plenty." + +"Oh, a man is known by the tailor he keeps," threw in Rangely; +"especially if he doesn't pay him." + +"It's all a game of cut-throat," Bently remarked philosophically; "art +and business alike." + +"I should hate to have my throat cut," observed the German Pagan in a +matter of fact tone; "it must let a dreadful draught into the system." + +"Oh, if you were beheaded," cried Rangely, "you'd turn into a capital +beer fountain, so your friends would find some consolation, even in +your loss." + +A diversion was caused here by the production of a splendid Japanese +punch-bowl, supported upon a teakwood stand. In it the host proceeded +to brew a potent and steaming mixture, whose fragrance must have +delighted the jocund gods of jollity and laughter. Tom was notorious +for being chronically in pecuniary difficulties, but he was always +adding to his collection of _bibelots_, and he never was known to +lack the means of concocting a glorious punch. + +"Ye gods!" exclaimed Ainsworth, "how good that smells. It almost +overcomes the general mustiness of Tom's den here, which usually has +all the odors of the Ghetto from which his things are dragged." + +"Casper is intoxicated already with the mere fumes," retorted Bently +good humoredly. "He's bound to fill a drunkard's grave sooner or +later." + +"No; I never shall," chuckled the other. "I'm altogether too good +natured to crowd the drunkard out." + +This sally was received with applause, and the glasses being filled, +the usual toasts to the goddess Pasht and to art were drank. + +"And to our seven," went on Herman, holding up his glass, and going on +with the formula they had, half unconsciously, fallen into the habit of +using, although they made no pretense of having a ritual. + +But he set his glass down untasted, suddenly remembering that their +ranks were broken, and the others followed his example. + +"The difference between religion and art," broke out Rangely, +hurriedly, to cover the awkward silence which followed, "is that +religion is a matter of tradition, of convention; it rests upon +authority, while art springs from inner conviction." + +"Sophistry," retorted the German, picking up the gauntlet; "there have +been a good many things said here to-night which sound well but won't +stand fire. It is precisely for following conventions in art that we +blame Fenton." + +"And that proves my point." + +"No, it doesn't; there's as much art that depends upon tradition as +there is religion." + +"No," replied Rangely. "In so far as art gets its inspiration from +fossil tradition it is lifeless and indeed ceases to be art. Religion +presupposes something exterior; while art is the outgrowth of the +individual's own mind, the best expression of his inner strength." + +"Religion," Herman threw in, "demands the existence of the unknown; art +only the existence of the inexpressible." + +"Yet art devotes itself to expression." + +"Yes, but more to suggesting. It phrases the possible so as to suggest +that which is above and beyond expression, yet toward which it helps +the emotions and the imagination. I think a man's soul a matter of very +little moment as compared to his imagination, and it is because art +ministers to the latter that I place it above religion." + +The talk was diverted here by some laughing remark which led on to a +train of gay badinage. The German tried to bring the conversation back +to serious levels, but in vain. + +"Oh, what fustian we've given ourselves up to to-night," laughed +Rangely. + +"It amuses me to hear you fellows discuss religion," Tom Bently +observed. "You wander round the subject as aimlessly as the young women +in the first half hour of a Harvard symphony concert." + +"Never you mind, Bently," rejoined Ainsworth. "You are sure of coming +out all right; the gods are bound to protect humbug, for on it depends +their own existence." + +They drifted in little groups to different parts of the studio, +admiring this or that bit of grace or beauty. Then the German, who was +a professional musician, tuned an old mandolin with which a Venetian +lover some star-lit night centuries ago, may have serenaded his loved +one from his gondola; and to its trembling accompaniment sang a quaint +chansonette, his Teutonic accent making havoc among its liquid Italian +syllables. Then Rangely possessed himself of a strange African +instrument, a crooked gourd, hollowed and strung with twisted tree +fibers, and joined to the notes of the mandolin, its weird, cicada-like +harshness. The duet moved Bently to clear a miscellaneous collection of +articles from the lid of a spinnet of the time of Louis XIV., upon +which be-powdered and be-patched dames, long forgotten, had strummed +pretty little tinkling tunes, while all about them other +marionette-like ladies and gallants played at little tinkling loves, as +pretty and as empty. + +The three instruments, so strangely matched, went off together in a +variety of music, imparting to every thing an uncanny, ghostly flavor, +as if these airs came in wild echoes from the shores of some dead past. + +"Oh, stop that," Herman cried, at last. "It's too melancholy. Your +instruments are all dead; and it's no use trying to get live music out +of them." + +For reply the German led off in a drearisome minor folk-tune, Rangely +and Bently improvising their parts with some skill, albeit not always +with perfect harmony. + +"Ye Gods!" cried Ainsworth, seizing the mandolin out of the player's +grasp. "Is this a Hottentot funeral? Here, Fred, give me that +diabolical gourd; it is haunted by the soul of a Caffre medicine man." + +"I say, fellows," spoke Rangely, as the din subsided, "I move we make +this a funeral, by breaking up the Pagans. Of course there is nothing +to hinder our meeting round at each other's places whenever we want to; +but we've either got to turn Fenton out or break up. I, for one, am +coward enough to prefer to break up." + +"So say I," said Herman. "When once a circle like this is broken, there +is an end of it. It can't be patched together." + +They looked at each other in silence a moment. To disband seemed like +an acknowledgment of defeat. Many another band of ardent souls has +known the feeling, with its dreary ache, although it oftener happens +that a circle of this kind disappears by the gradual dropping away of +its numbers one by one rather than that its members are brought face to +face with the necessity of owning that its existence had resulted in +failure. Whatever their faults and extravagances, whatever their errors +and intolerance, they were sincere, self sacrificing and ardent beyond +the men who made up the world about them; a group of eager lovers of +truth and art who had been drawn together by mutual aims and +enthusiasms. Their fierceness had been in defense of honesty and +sincerity, their disinterestedness was attested by the fact that any +one of them might have made his peace with Philistia and been rewarded +for his complaisance had he so chosen. Doubtless they had their faults +and foibles, yet their comradeship, in its essential purport had been +true and noble. + +They in no wise abandoned their aims in agreeing with the proposition +to disband, but about their fellowship had been a certain un-phrased +tenderness, at which, if put in word, any one of them might have +scoffed, yet which nevertheless they all felt strongly in their secret +hearts, and all were conscious that after this defection of Fenton, the +circle could never be perfect again. They did not discuss the matter +now, but in the interval of silence each acknowledged to himself that +to disband was best; and briefly each gave his assent; all soberly, +some almost gruffly. + +And so it came about that the goddess Pasht lost her last band of +followers, and the Pagans assembled no more forever. + + + + +XXXVI. + +AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND. + Merchant of Venice; v.--2. + + +"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the +background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes +differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you'd see." + +"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage," +Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not +logical." + +"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still +say yes." + +It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come +to Fenton's studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have +that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not +choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife. + +"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature's protest against +civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on +her own ground, am I not?" + +"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote +Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what +is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be +honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must +be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever +acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have." + +"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too +self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to +win society? Society is ready enough to take them in." + +"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, +'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage +seems already to have sucked the life out of you." + +"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot +make me angry." + +"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is +your fault." + +"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, +"oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself." + +He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the +building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen. +He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of +the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite. + +"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence. +"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why +you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well +connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, +Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling +the Egyptians." + +"But that was in departing from their country." + +"We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only +disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect +you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself. +You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I +am able." + +She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives +seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his +marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her +impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing. + +"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not +her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?" + +"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look +coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?" + +"You are speaking of your wife!" + +"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or +of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long +ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do +precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime? +Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of +being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of +whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example." + +"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple +question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of +hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush +mark of your canvas there!" + +For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat +upright in his cushions and faced her. + +"Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You +cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I +asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with +the Philistines!" + +He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off +some disgusting touch. + +"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, +"far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I +prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever +else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would +like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes +me beautifully." + +He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait +contemptuously. + +"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming +thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. +The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving +them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't +enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of +standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by +enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, +she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while +they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help +her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with +the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not +wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most +part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial +good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you +choose." + +He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose +as he finished. + +"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own +judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have +ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race." + +"But I acknowledge my faults." + +"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment +is not reparation, though many try to make it so." + +She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand +upon the latch. + +"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet +again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can." + +"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at +him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you." + +"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil. +I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is +true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as +through her sincerity." + +"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen. + +"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed +my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word 'Pardon.'" + +"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than +either would be a blank! Let me pass!" + + + + +XXXVII. + +FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER. + Richard II.; ii.--2. + + +The outward bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle +attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people +who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying +little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, +while her glance was cast to the ground, save when she raised her head +in speaking. + +The Italian from time to time took Helen's hand in hers and kissed it +fondly. + +"I pray the Madonna for you every night," she whispered in her native +tongue, "that she will give you a safe voyage." + +The sculptor watched all that went on about them, waiting with some +inward impatience for the moment when the duty of escorting Mrs. +Greyson on board would give him an opportunity of being a moment alone +with her. + +"We shall miss you much," he said, feeling that any thing would be +better than the silence which hedged them in amid the noisy bustle of +the throng. "We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?" + +He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's +face, and for her alone he had ears. + +"Yes," he said again with nervous platitude, when once more they had +lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife +nor myself has any friend to take your place." + +Some faint accent in the tone in which he referred to his three hours' +bride made the widow look up suddenly. To the question in her eyes his +glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame +her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be +miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall +and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as time went on? + +But all these questionings Helen had answered with stern bravery during +the sad wakeful nights and lonely days just past. She had first +convinced herself that it was right that Herman should redeem his +old-time pledge to Ninitta, and after that she forced herself to the +bitterer task of realizing that when time had obliterated somewhat the +clearness of her own image in the sculptor's heart, something of his +old affection for the Italian might be rekindled in his generous, warm +nature, always tenderly chivalrous towards woman, and sure to prove +doubly so to one dependent upon him. It was hard, but Helen +unflinchingly analyzed the nature of her lover, and while she could not +believe that he would ever feel for his wife the grand passion which +she had herself inspired in his breast, she saw for him a tranquil +future in which his wife's devotion would be met with enduring, even +with increasing affection, which if not love, would be so like it that +Ninitta, at least, would never distinguish; and in which her husband +would find comfort and warmth, if not fire and aspiration. + +She had a harder struggle when the thought came to her, "Have I not led +him into the one thing he most dreads and despises, an act of +insincerity? Can a loveless marriage be honest?" But she answered her +doubting heart; "No; he has told Ninitta that he does not love her as +of old, and he is not deceiving her. It is my own selfishness that puts +this thought into my mind." It may be that Helen was wrong, for the +influence of her Puritan training had left a strong impress upon her +moral sense in a regard for the sanctity of a pledge, especially to its +spirit rather than its letter, so deep as to be almost morbid; yet at +least she was self sacrificing and never more truly consistent than in +the seeming inconsistency of urging this marriage. + +"Come," was Herman's word, almost a command, when the crowd upon the +steamer's deck began definitely to separate into those who were to go +and those who remained. "You must go aboard. Ninitta, stand just where +you are until I come back. I will be gone only an instant." + +Helen turned and kissed Ninitta, a sharp pang stabbing her very soul, +as the thought came to her: "He will love her; she is his wife, and he +will learn to love her!" Then she put her arm upon Herman's in silence. + +She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her +excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the +steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on +deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where +the two were alone. + +"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it +is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide." + +"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith +between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no +matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it +must be right." + +He bent forward to kiss her. + +"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I +have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now +we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave +you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to +love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to +each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not +forget me." + +"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered +he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his +cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future." + +She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer +sounded out sharply upon the air. + +"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, +even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she +added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, +though I must not share it." + +He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but +her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife +awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his. + +"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, +lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and +afraid without you." + +He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he +withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning +over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down +the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by +their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight. + +FINIS. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pagans, by Arlo Bates + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGANS *** + +This file should be named 8pagn10.txt or 8pagn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8pagn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8pagn10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Erika Stokes +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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