Chapter 5

He began to feel it necessary to ask one or two questions that he might know what to prepare for, but as he broke the silence to begin she said warningly, in a low whisper:

"Sh-sh-sh, he is waking," and then fell to rocking and crooning over the baby and coaxing him back to sleep. When he seemed quite quiet again she said suddenly in a low whisper, and in the dark he felt her eyes upon him:

"What makes you so kind? No one is ever kind to me. I thought nobody cared. I had one friend but she went away. She did not want to leave me, but she had to go far off somewhere to make a living for her mother."

"I will always help you if you will let me," Noel said, whispering too, for fear of being silenced. "I will send my sisters to see you, if you will let them come--"

"Oh, no!" she said, interrupting him impulsively. "Don't send any women out of the world you live in to see me. They are cruel--they have dreadful thoughts of me. They look at me strangely and suspect me. Oh, no--I'd rather take my baby to the end of the earth and hide from them. I beg you not to send any one to see me."

Noel hastened to promise her that he certainly would not go against her wish, and was wondering how he should find out the things he longed so to know, when suddenly the carriage stopped.

The driver got down and rang the bell. As Noel was helping Christine to get out, the door was opened and the figure of Dallas appeared. It was a surprise to him, somehow, and an unwelcome one. How his spirit rose in abhorrence of this man!

Christine went up the steps with the baby, and as he had her bag and shawl Noel followed, telling the driver to wait.

It was a miserable little house, poor and cheap, and empty, and but for the counteracting effect of his anger against Dallas, Noel thought he must have almost sobbed to see Christine here. Dallas himself was not at all discomposed as he recognized his visitor and asked him in, offering a hand which Noel managed to touch.

The baby was still asleep, and when Christine had placed it carefully on a wretched little couch, she seemed, for the first time, free to think of Noel. She turned and asked him to sit down--at the same time glancing about her with a sudden rush of consciousness, which until now a nearer interest had crowded out. The poverty-stricken look of her surroundings was made the more evident by the few objects belonging to other days that lay about--a charming sacque, smartly braided and lined with rich silk, hung on the back of a chair, and a handsome travelling rug was folded under the baby on the sofa. Everything was clean, for Christine even yet had not come to contemplate the possibility of doing without a servant.

There was a small kerosene lamp on a table, over which were spread a lot of cards with their faces up. Some one had evidently been playing solitaire, and as evidently, on the witness of another sense, been accompanying the game by the smoking of bad tobacco. The room reeked with it to a degree that made Noel feel it an outrage to Christine. But what was he to do? There was but one thing. He said good-by and went away, carrying the memory of Christine's face flushed scarlet for shame.

He remembered afterward that Dallas had taken no notice of the baby--not even glancing at it or inquiring for it--a thing which the poor mother had taken as a matter of course. He thought, as he shook hands with her at parting, that Christine had tried to speak--perhaps a word of thanks--but something stopped it and she let him go in silence.

The next afternoon Noel, at the same hour, went down to the wharf and boarded the excursion boat, for the deliberate purpose of having some practical talk with Christine. He soon found her, absorbed so completely in the baby that his coming seemed scarcely to disturb for a moment the intentness of her preoccupation. This, at first, made him feel a certain irritation, but he soon had reason to congratulate himself upon an absence of self-consciousness on her part which made it the easier for him to put certain questions. Everything he inquired about she responded to with absolute honesty and a sort of vagueness which precluded any such feelings as wounded pride. He learned, by his adroit questionings, that they were now very poor, that Dallas had been spending his principal, which was now exhausted, and that their chief means of support was the money she obtained for doing a very elaborate sort of embroidery which she had learned while at the convent. When he asked if she had all the work she wanted she said no, and that she often rang door-bells and asked ladies to give her work and was refused. She told all this with apathy, however, and seemed to have no power of acute feeling outside of her child.

Then Noel, with a beating heart, made a proposal to her which had occurred to him during the wakeful hours of the night, but which he had felt he should hardly have courage for. This was that she should come every day and give him sittings for a new picture he had in mind. When he suggested it, to his delight she caught eagerly at the idea, accepting every word he said in absolute good faith, and showing no disposition to doubt when he told her that every hour would be many times more valuable so spent than in sewing, as good models were rare and very well paid. She thanked him with the simplest gratitude, and when she heard that she would be allowed to bring her child with her she promised to come the next morning to his studio. The baby, she said, was better now, and would sleep for hours at a time, and in the afternoon she could take him on the water as usual. It was evident that there was no one else who made any demand upon her time--a significant fact to Noel.

Accordingly, next morning she came, her baby in her arms as usual. She had made an effort to dress herself attractively, looking upon the matter in a very businesslike way, and so girlish and charming and delicately high-bred did she look in her French-made gown of transparent black, with trimmings of pale green ribbons, and a wide lace hat to match, that Noel rebelled with all his might against her lugging that absurdly superfluous baby up those long steps. Still it was necessary to accept the inevitable, and he set his teeth and said nothing. When she had laid the sleeping child upon a lounge and turned toward him, her eyes fastened eagerly upon a great bunch of crimson roses in a blue china bowl, which Noel had gotten in honor of her coming. She did not, of course, suspect this, but he saw that here, at least, was a vivid and spontaneous feeling apart from her child, as she bent above the mass of rich color.

"Oh, how good they are!" she said. "I seem to want to eat them, and smell them and look at them all at once."

She held them off and regarded them enjoyingly a moment and then raised them to her face again, and smelled them with audible little sniffs, even nibbling the red leaves with her white teeth, as she looked at Noel over them and smiled. He went, delighted, and brought a basket of luscious grapes which he held out to her. She took a large bunch, and holding it by the stem began to pick the grapes off one by one and eat them enjoyingly. They were pale green in color, and he noted the effect of her clear pink nails against them and the beautiful curves of the long fingers that held the stem. He poured out some water in a beautiful old Venetian goblet and offered it to her. There was a bit of ice in it, which she tinkled against the side with the delight of a child before she drank it.

"I am sure I am dreaming, perfectly sure," she said seriously. "I only hope I won't wake until I have finished this bunch of grapes."

Then she lifted the glass to her mouth, tilting it until she had got the ice, which she chewed up noisily with her sharp little teeth. Noel felt a keen delight to see that she was letting herself be gay for a brief moment, but he seemed to see into the sadness back of it more plainly than ever.

"Oh, I am very happy," she said, suddenly throwing herself into a chair where she could see her sleeping child. "My baby is better--a great deal better; he has smiled twice, and is sleeping so peacefully! Yes, I am happy!--and yet the other feeling--the one that has been with me always lately--is here too. It is very strange that one can be at the same time very happy and also the most miserable woman in the world! Does this sound like craziness? I am not crazy. There are some people--did you know it?--who can't go crazy!--who never would, no matter what happened to them! A doctor told me that, and I believe it. He says it is constitutional or inherited or something like that--a physical thing--having a very strong brain that couldn't be upset!"

She rose now, and insisted that the sitting should begin. Noel saw again the unforgotten outline of her beautiful head, with its rippling dark hair drawn backward into that low knot behind.

It was in silence that she seated herself, and he began to work. He felt as if some fair saint were sitting to him, and that the picture would never come out right without a nimbus round the head. As he went on with his rapid drawing in charcoal he saw a change settle heavily upon the face before him. Utter sadness seemed to come there as soon as the lines relaxed into their natural look.

At last, when he felt he had done enough to entitle her to feel that she had really rendered service, he threw a cloth over the picture and declared the sitting ended. She did not, however, ask to look at it, but went over at once to where the baby lay, and stood looking down upon him. Noel, who had followed her, stood silently beside her for some moments. Suddenly she said aloud:

"I am very miserable."

He took it in silence, as he had taken her former confession of happiness. Presently she went on:

"I said, a little while ago, that I was happy, and for a moment I seemed to feel it in spite of all the misery. God knows I don't forget to thank Him that my baby is better"--her lips trembled--"but what is his dear life to be? What is mine to be? Always like this? Oh, God help me! My heart is broken."

He thought she was going to cry, but she did not. She only clasped her hands hard together and drew in her lower lip, clenching it in her teeth.

"Perhaps I ought not to speak like this," she said. "I don't know whether it is very wrong or not. But it is so long since any one was kind to me or seemed to care."

"It is not wrong," said Noel, "don't think it. Ease your heart by speaking, if it comforts you. Try to remember what we are to each other--think of me as your brother."

Thus invited, he hoped she would speak freely, but she caught her lip again, as if in the effort of self-repression, and shook her head. Noel was hurt.

"Do you not trust me?" he said.

"I trust you always," she answered. "You are good and kind and true, and not like other men. Oh, how bad they are! What things they can think of a woman! The world is dark and evil, and I and my baby are alone--alone--alone!"

The vehemence of this outburst seemed to recall her to herself and her surroundings, and by a tremendous effort she managed to attain a manner and expression of calm. The baby stirred and opened its eyes, and in a moment everything else was forgotten.

A few moments later, when, with the child in her arms, she was ready to go, Noel, as he handed her her gloves and pocketbook, slipped something into the latter.

"I don't know what you will think of the reward of your morning's labor," he said, in an off-hand way. "To me it seems miserably little, although you, with your notions, may think it too much. You don't know, of course, that a model such as the one I've secured this morning is hard to get, and can always command a good price. You have fairly and honestly earned it and I hope you will be willing to come again. May I say to-morrow?"

"If baby is as well as to-day. Oh, how good you are! I hope God will bless you for being so good to me."

"I hope He would curse me if I were not," said Noel, and then, restraining his vehemence, he begged her to let him carry the baby down-stairs for her. This she utterly refused, and it cut him to the heart to feel that her reason for doing so was not so much to save him trouble as to prevent his being seen in such a condescending attitude toward his model. So he had to see her go off alone with her burden. He rebelled passionately at the sight. Since the baby was--a stubborn fact in an emaciated form--and Christine could not be happy to have it out of her sight, the situation should, at any rate, have had the mitigations which civilization supplies. A picturesque _bonne_, in an effective cap and apron, should have carried the child for her, and a footman should have held open the door of a comfortable carriage for her on reaching the street. Instead of which he had to meet the maddening possibility that the cabman was careless and insolent and that passers-by in the street stared at her.

With his hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets he turned back into the studio, slamming the door behind him with his elbow, and walking moodily over to the window, where he stood a long while lost in thought. The one satisfactory reflection which the situation suggested was that he had succeeded in making Christine accept, as a natural arrangement, the fact that when artists employed models they always sent them to and from the studios in a cab, which it was the artist's business to pay for.

VIII.

The next day Christine came again, and although she was comforted by the fact that the baby still seemed better Noel thought he had never seen or imagined such absolute sadness as both her face and manner showed. The picture progressed in long spaces of absolute silence, while Christine sat as immovable as the sleeping child near by. It seemed to Noel, in spite of his inexperience, that the child lay more in a state of stupor than sleep, and that its prostration argued the very lowest degree of vitality, but Christine seemed satisfied when he was asleep and so Noel made no comment.

During the sitting that day he asked Christine if he would prove himself a nuisance to either her or her husband if he sometimes called in the evening. To the first part of the inquiry she replied that she would be glad to see him, and to the latter, with a sort of hopeless wonder, that Mr. Dallas would not mind.

Noel went once, and once only. The visit was too painful to himself, and he felt also to Christine, to be repeated. The hideous barrenness of the place seemed an outrage to her delicacy and made the refinement of her beauty seem cruelly out of place. But more than all, when Noel looked on the untidy negligence and brutal insensibility of the man who was at liberty to call her wife, and whom she acknowledged as husband, he felt it unbearable. He was even worse than he remembered him. Formerly he had, at least, dressed well and kept up the forms of civility. Noel could imagine that he was now glad to be rid of the trouble. He did not even care to be particular about his person since he was now in a position where that bother could be dispensed with.

As soon as Noel began to talk to Christine Dallas filled his pipe and went off to the table to play solitaire. Noel fancied that the smell of the rank tobacco, which was unimproved in quality, made the poor girl sick. It was a relief when Dallas got up after a while, and shoving the cards together in a heap left the room. Then Noel inquired for the baby. Somehow he always shrank from speaking of it before Dallas.

"He is asleep up-stairs. Eliza is with him: He is better," said Christine, "but the doctor says there is no certainty until the hot weather is over. Oh, it's selfish of me to want him to live," she added, with a sudden agitation in her voice, "but it isn't that; it isn't life I want for him--only to keep him with me--to be where he is. If I could--"

She broke off huskily, and Noel, out of pity for her, got up and walked to the other end of the little room. When he got back she had recovered, and said with a smile:

"I am out of patience with myself for being gloomy now. You will think me such a poor coward. The baby is better and I will try to be bright. I said in my prayers to God that if He would let my baby get better I would be happy, and ask for nothing else. But what do you think this is?" she added, with a change of tone, drawing something from her pocket and holding it hid in her closed hand.

"I can't imagine," said Noel, full of delight to see that look of interest and amusement on her face.

"A present for you from me! Isn't that funny? It isn't anything very valuable and perhaps you won't care for it, but I have a feeling that I want you to have it. It's the cross of the Legion of Honor, which belonged to my grandfather. My mother left it to me among some trinkets of hers, which have all been sold. Don't look sorry about it; you don't know how little it matters now! This I could never have sold, and besides it is worth very little really--but I felt I wanted you to have it. Will you let me give it to you?"

She opened her hand and held it out to him with the cross lying on the palm. Noel was deeply touched.

"I never really expected to be decorated," he said, "but there is no possible way in which a decoration could come to me that could give me such pride and pleasure as this. Take it? I should think so! When I used to dream of being a painter I thought perhaps I'd have a great picture in the _Salon_ and get a decoration for it. But I assure you this is better."

"Oh, what pleasant things you say!" said Christine. "You make me feel quite happy," and she held out the cross for him to take.

"I want you to fasten it on," said Noel. "I mean always to wear it. Will you pin it here?"

He turned back his coat and Christine came close to him and complied with the utmost willingness. The pin was a little blunt or rusted and it took her several seconds to put it in and fasten it. Their faces were almost on a level, and Noel's eyes looked closer than they had ever done before at her youthful loveliness. Hers were bent in complete absorption upon her task.

When she had fastened the pin she drew backward, still holding open the coat that she might see the cross in its new position. All the time she never looked at Noel, but all the time he looked at her.

"Thank you," she said simply.

Noel seemed stricken with silence. His mind was confused, and he did not know what to say. And Christine, wondering that he did not speak, lifted her large eyes to his face and looked at him questioningly. Then Noel remembered himself, and in perfect recollectedness and self-possession he took her hands and kissed them, first one and then the other.

"You have made me your knight," he said. "Let me never forget it. I am a knight of the Legion of Honor. I shall carry this cross about me always to remind me of it. Thank you, and bless you, Christine."

Then he dropped her hands, and they sat down and fell to talking. For the first time in his recent intercourse with her she was able to speak of general subjects. There was a momentary lull in her anxiety about the baby, and in her release from that recent and heavy burden she felt a rebound from the more remote causes of unhappiness too. So they got into a talk that was easy and almost bright. They spoke together of foreign lands familiar to them both, of music and painting, and all the things from which her present life divided her so completely that, as Christine said presently, it was like recalling dreams. And then in the midst of it Dallas came in, with his slovenly dress and horrible pipe, and Christine, with an awful look of recollectedness, came back to reality. It was impossible to take this man into a talk like theirs, and Noel quickly said good-night.

IX.

The next day and the next Christine went to the studio, and the sittings passed in almost total silence. It had become more than ever impossible for them to speak to each other, and they both realized it. Then came a day on which Noel waited in vain for Christine. When morning and afternoon were passed and he got no tidings he could bear the suspense no longer, and went to the house to inquire. Old Eliza, the negro servant, opened the door for him and told him the baby was dying. His heart grew cold within him. What would Christine do? How could she bear it? He asked if the doctor had been, and was told he was now up-stairs. He inquired for Dallas. "Gone to walk," Eliza said with contempt, and then added that "He might as well be one place as another, as he didn't do no good nowhar."

Noel saw the doctor, an elderly, capable, decided man, who, as he soon found, took in the whole situation and sympathized with Christine as heartily as he excoriated her husband. Noel said he was an old friend of Christine's, who was anxious to do all that was possible for her, and had the satisfaction of seeing that he had inspired Dr. Belford with confidence in him. He soon saw that it was unnecessary to ask the good physician to see that her wants and those of the child were supplied, as his own sympathies were thoroughly enlisted, so he could only beg to be notified of anything he could possibly do, and go sadly away.

When Noel came, early next morning, a scant bit of black drapery, tied with a white ribbon, told him that the thing had happened which deprived Christine of all she loved on earth. The desire of her eyes was taken from her and her house was left unto her desolate.

Eliza opened the door, and he came inside the hall and asked her a few questions. The baby had died about midnight, the woman said. Dr. Belford had stayed until it was over. The child was now prepared for burial, the mother having done everything herself, seeming perfectly calm. She would not eat, however, and was lying on the bed by the baby. He did not need to inquire for the father, for at the end of the hall was the dining-room, where he could see Dallas, with his back turned, seated at the table, evidently making a hearty breakfast, the smell of which smote offensively the visitor's nostrils. Noel felt he must get away, and yet the thought of Christine, lying up-stairs alone by her little dead baby, seemed to pull him by his very heartstrings.

He put some money into Eliza's hand, telling her to use it as she thought necessary, and then went away. He next sought Dr. Belford and sent a message to Christine, which he felt would fall as coldly as upon the ear of a marble statue, and then he went to a florist's and sent her a great heap of pure white flowers, which he thought she might care to put about the baby. This done he felt helpless, impotent and miserable.