Miss Mayhew apparently had not given a single glance to the artist,
as he sat opposite to her and but a little out of earshot. Indeed,
so well did she simulate unconsciousness of his presence, that
were if not for an occasional glance from Mrs. Mayhew he might have
thought himself unnoticed; but something in that lady's manner, as
caught by occasional glances, led him to suspect that he was the
subject of their conversation.
But Ida's indifference was, in truth, only seeming; for although
she never looked directly at him, she subjected his image, which
was constantly flitting across the retina of her eye, to the closest
scrutiny, and no act or expression of his escaped her. She was
piqued by the fact that he showed no disturbed consciousness of her
presence, and that his glance was occasionally as free and natural
towards her as towards any other guest of the house. His bearing
annoyed her excessively, for it seemed an easy and quiet assertion
of indifference and superiority--two manifestations that were to
her as objectionable as unusual. Neither in looks nor manner did
she appear very agreeable during the brief time she spent in the
public parlors. The guests of the house, even to the ladies who
foresaw an eclipse of their own charms, were compelled to admit
that she was very pretty; but it was a general remark that her face
did not make or leave a pleasant impression.
Van Berg surmised that Stanton's disposition to teaze and banter
would lead him to repeat and, perhaps, distort, anything he might
say concerning the young lady, so he made no reference whatever
to the Mayhews, but took pains to give the impression that he was
deeply interested in the scenery.
"I shall probably be off with my sketch-book before you are up," he
said; "for if I remember correctly, you are up with the lark only
when you have been up over-night."
"You are the greater sinner of the two," yawned Stanton; "for if I
occasionally keep unseasonable hours at night, you do so habitually
in the morning. Either you are not as brilliant as usual this
evening, or else the country air makes me drowsy. Good-night. We
will take a ride to-morrow, and you can sketch five miles of fence
if you find that you cannot resist your mania for work."
Perhaps Stanton HAD found his friend slightly preoccupied, for, in
spite of the constraint he had put upon himself to appear as usual,
this second and closer view of the face which had taken so strong
a hold upon his fancy did not dissipate his first impressions.
Indeed, they were deepened rather, for he saw again and more clearly
the same marvellous capabilities in the features, and also their
exasperating failure to make a beautiful face.
He dreamed over his project some little time after his friend had
retired, and the conclusion of his revery was:
"I must soon make some progress in my experiment or else decamp, for
that girl's contradictory face is a constant incentive to profanity."
After seeing Mrs. Mayhew, however, he felt that justice required
him to admit that the daughter was a natural and logical sequence;
and in the mother he saw an element more hopelessly inartistic and
disheartening than anything in the girl herself; for even if the
latter could be changed, would not the shadow of the stout and
dressy mother ever fall athwart the picture?
Van Berg retired with the feeling that his project of illuminating
a face by awakening a mind that, as yet, had slept, did not promise
very brilliantly.
Miss Mayhew tried to persuade herself that it was a relief not to
see the critical artist at breakfast, nor to meet him as she strolled
from the parlors to the piazza and thence to the croquet-ground,
where she listlessly declined to take part in a game.
There was, in truth, great need that her mind should be awakened
and her whole nature radically changed, if it were a possible
thing,--a need shown by the fact the fair June morning, with its
fragrance and beauty, could not light up her face with its own
freshness and gladness. The various notes of the birds were only
sounds; the landscape, seen for the first time, was like the map
of Switzerland, that, in the days of her geography lessons, gave
her as vivid an idea of the country as a dry sermon does of heaven.
Although her ears and eyes were so pretty, she was, in the deepest
and truest sense of the word, deaf and blind. The lack of some
petty and congenial excitement made time hang heavily on her hands
and clouded her face with 'ennui.'"
Even her cousin had failed her, for he was down at the stables,
making arrangements for the care of his bays and his carriage. Thus
from very idleness she fell to nursing her small spite against the
man whose voice had made such harsh discord with the honeyed chorus
of flattery to which she was accustomed. She wished that he would
appear, and that in some way she might show how little she cared
for him or his opinion; but as he did not, she at last lounged to
her room and sought to kill a few hours with a novel.
Her wounded pride, however, induced her to dress quite elaborately
for dinner; for she had faith in no better way of asserting her
personality than that afforded by the toilet. She would teach him,
by the admiration she excited in others, how mistaken he had been
in his estimate, and her vanity whispered that even he could not
look upon her beauty for any length of time without being won by
it as so many others had been.
The change of seats having been effected, she scarcely thought it
necessary to turn her back upon him while sitting at such a dim
distance. Indeed she was inclined to regret the change, for now
her toilet and little airs, which she imagined to be so pretty,
would be lost upon him.
It would seem that they were, for Van Berg ate his dinner as quietly,
and chatted as unconcernedly to those about him as if she had no
existence. Never had a man ignored her so completely before, and
she felt that she could never forgive him.
After the event of the day was over, and the guests were circling
and eddying through the halls and parlors and out on the piazza,
Ida still had the annoyance of observing that Van Berg was utterly
oblivious of her as far as she could perceive. He spoke here and
there with the ease and freedom of one familiar with society, and
she saw more eyes following his tall form approvingly than were
turned towards herself. Few gentlemen remained at the house during
the week, and Miss Mayhew was not a favorite with her own sex.
Those who most closely resembled her in character envied rather
than admired her, and those who were better endowed and developed
found fault even with her beauty from a moral point of view, as
Van Berg had on artistic grounds. She consoled herself, however,
with the thought that it was Saturday, and that the evening boat
and trains would bring a number of gentlemen, among whom she told
Stanton, exultantly, that she had "some friends"--moths rather
whose wings were in danger of being singed.
As the afternoon was not sultry, Stanton had said to his friend
that they could enjoy their cigars and a ride at the same time, and
that he would drive around for him in a few minutes. Ida overheard
the remark, and, quietly slipping off to her room, returned with
her hat and shawl. As her cousin approached she hastened down the
steps, past Van Berg, exclaiming:
"Oh, thank you, Ik! How good of you! I was dying for a ride.
Don't trouble yourself. I can get in without aid," and she sprang
lightly into the buggy before her cousin could utter a word.
He turned with a look of comic dismay and deprecation to his friend,
who stood laughing on the steps. Ida, also, could not resist
her inclination to catch a glimpse of the artist's chagrin and
disappointment, but she was provoked beyond measure to find him
acting as if Stanton were the victim rather than himself. As the
sweep of the road again brought them in view of the piazza, this
impression was confirmed by seeing Van Berg stroll carelessly away,
complacently puffing his cigar as if he had already dismissed her
from his mind.
"Really," grumbled Stanton, "I never had beauty and happiness thrust
upon me so unexpectedly before."
"Very well then," retorted Ida; "stop your horses and thrust me
out into the road. I'd rather go back, even if I have to walk."
"Oh, no! there is to be no going back for two hours or more. I
once cured a horse of running away by making him run long after he
wanted to stop."
"You seem to be learning your friend's hateful manners."
"I asked you this morning if you would take a drive, and you
declined."
"I changed my mind."
"Very abruptly, indeed, it seemed. Since you took so much touble
to annoy my friend, it's a pity you failed."
"I don't believe I failed. He's probably as cross as you are about
it, only he can keep it to himself."
"Dove-like creatiah! thanks. Will you please drive while I light
a cigar?"
"I don't like any one to smoke as near me as you are."
"If your theory in regard to Van Berg is correct, none of us will
enjoy what we like this afternoon. Of course I never smoke without
a lady's permission, but unless quieted by a cigar, I am a very
reckless driver," and he enforced his words by a sharp crack of
the whip, which sent the horses off like the wind.
"Oh, stop them; smoke; do anything hateful you wish, so you don't
break my neck. I will never ride with you again, and I wish I had
never come to this horrid place; and if your sneering painter does
not leave soon, I will."
"I'm afraid Van would survive, and you only suffer from your spite.
But come, since you have so sweetly permitted me to smoke, I'll
make your penance as light as possible, and then we will consider
matters even between us," and away they bowled up breezy hills and
down into shady valleys, Stanton stolidly smoking, and Ida nursing
her petty wrath. Two flitting ghosts hastening to escape from the
light of day, could not have seen less, or have felt less sympathy
with the warm beautiful scenes through which they were passing.
There is no insulation so perfect as that of small, selfish natures
preoccupied with a pique.
When, late in the afternoon, her cousin, with mock politeness, assisted
her to alight at the entrance of the hotel, Ida was compelled to
feel that she had indeed been the chief victim of her own spite.
but, with the usual logic of human nature, she never thought of
blaming herself, and her resentment was chiefly directed against
the man whose every word and glance, although he was but a stranger,
had seemed to possess a power to annoy and wound from the first.
She felt an almost venomous desire to retaliate; but he appeared
invulnerable in his quiet and easy superiority, while she, who
expected, as a matter of course, that all masculine thoughts should
follow her admiringly, had been compelled to see that his critical
eyes had detected that in her which had awakened his contempt.
"I'll teach him this evening, when my gentlemen friends arrive,
how ridiculous are his airs," she muttered, as she went to her room
and sought to enhance her beauty by all the arts of which she was
the mistress. "I'll show him that there are plenty who can see
what he cannot, or will not. Because he is an artist, he need not
think he can face me out of the knowledge of my beauty, the existence
of which I have been assured of by so many eyes and tongues ever
since I can remember."
When she came down to await the arrival of the stages and carriages,
she was indeed radiant with all the beauty of which she was then
capable. Her neck and shoulders, with their exquisite lines and
curves, were more suggestively revealed than hidden by a slight
drapery of gauze-like illusion, and her white rounded arms were
bare. She trod with the light airy grace of youth, and yet with
the assured manner of one who is looking forward to the familiar
experiences of a reigning belle.
Van Berg, from his quiet corner of observation, was compelled to
admit that, seen at her present distance, she almost embodied his
best dreams, and might do so wholly were there less of the fashionable
art of the hour, and more of nature in her appearance. But he knew
well that if she came nearer, and spoke so as to reveal herself,
the fatal defect in her beauty would be as apparent as a black line
running athwart the sculptured face of a Greek goddess. The only
question with him was, did the ominous deformity lie so near the
surface that it could be refined away, or was it ingrained into
the very material of her nature, thus forming an essential part
of herself? He feared that the latter might be true, or that the
remedy was far beyond his skill or power; but every glance he caught
of the girl, as with her mother she paced the farther end of the
piazza, deepened his regret, as an artist, that so much beauty
should be in degrading bondage to a seeming fool.