Chapter 7

"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.