The Miss Mayhew that crossed the artist's threshold the following
morning might have been taken as a model of graceful self-possession,
but she disguised a maiden with as fluttering a heart and trembling
a soul as ever faced one of the supreme moments of destiny. Her
father, however, proved a faithful and intelligent ally, and his
manner towards Van Berg was a fine blending of courtesy and dignity,
suggesting a man as capable of conferring as of receiving favors.
His host would indeed have been blind and stupid if he had tried
to patronize Mr. Mayhew that morning.
Although unconscious of the fact, Van Berg was for a time subjected
to the closest scrutiny. Love had deep if not dark designs against
him, and the glances he bent on Ida might suggest that he was only
too ready to become a victim. He had welcomed to his study two
conspirators who were committed to their plot by the strongest of
motives, and yet they were such novel conspirators that a word, a
glance, an expression even of "ennui" or indifference would have
so touched their pride that they would have abandoned their wiles
at every cost to themselves. Were they trying to ensnare him?
Never were such films and gossamer threads used in like entanglement
before. He could have brushed them all away by one cold sweep
of his eyes, and the maiden who had not scrupled at death to gain
merely his respect, would have left the studio with a colder glance
than his, nor would her womanly strength have failed her until she
reached a refuge which his eye could not penetrate; but then--God
pity her. The tragedies over which the angels weep are the bloodless
wounds of the spirit.
But it would seem that the atmosphere of Van Berg's studio that
summer morning was not at all conducive to tragedy of any kind, nor
were there in his face or manner any indications of comedy, which
to poor Ida would have been far worse; for an air of careless
"bonhomie" on his part when she was so desperately in earnest would
have made his smiles and jests like heartless mockery.
And yet, in spite of his manner the previous day, the poor girl had
come to the studio fearing far more than she hoped, and burdened
also with a troubled conscience. She was almost sure she was not
doing right, and yet the temptation was too strong to be resisted.
But when he took her hand in greeting that morning, and said with
a smile that seemed to flash out from the depths of his soul,
"I won't hurt you any more if I can help it," all scruples, all
hesitancy vanished for a time, like frostwork in the sun. His
magnetism was irresistible, and she felt that it would require
all her tact and resolution to keep him by some careless, random
word or act, from brushing aside the veil behind which shrank her
trembling, and as yet, unsought love.
But Van Berg was even a rarer study than the maiden, and his manner
towards both Ida and her father might well lead one to think that
he was inclined to become the chief conspirator in the design
against himself. He had scarcely been conscious of time or place
since parting the previous day with the friend he was so bent
on securing, and when at last he slept in the small hours of the
morning he dreamt that he had been caught by a mighty tidal wave
that was bearing him swiftly towards heaven on its silver crest.
When he awoke, the wave, so far from being a bubble, seemed a
grand spiritual reality, and he felt as if he had already reached
a seventh heaven of vague, undefined exhilaration. Never before
had life appeared so rich a possession and so full of glorious
possibilities. Never in the past had he felt his profession to
be so noble and worthy of his devotion, and never had the fame he
hoped to grasp by means of it seemed so near. Beauty became to him
so infinitely beautiful and divine that he felt he could worship
it were it only embodied, and then with a strange and exquisite
thrill of exultation he exclaimed: "Right or wrong, to my eye it
is embodied in Ida Mayhew, and she will fill my studio with light
again to-day and many days to come. If ever an artist was fortunate
in securing as a friend, as an inspiration, a perfect and budding
flower of personal and spiritual loveliness, I am that happy man."
The Van Berg of other days would have called the Van Berg that
waited impatiently for his guests that morning a rhapsodical fool,
and the greater part of the world would offer no dissent. The
world is very prone to call every man who is possessed by a little
earnestness or enthusiasm a fool, but it is usually an open question
which is the more foolish--the world or the man; and perhaps we shall
all learn some day that there was more of sanity in our rhapsodies
than in the shrewd calculations that verged towards meanness. Be
this as it may in the abstract, Van Berg regarded himself as the most
rational man in the city that morning. He did not try to account
for his mental state by musty and proverbial wisdom or long-established
principles of psychology. The glad, strong consciousness of his
own soul satisfied him and made everything appear natural. Since
he HAD this strong and growing friendship for this maiden, who was
evidently pleased to come again to his studio, though so coy and
shy in admitting it, why should he not have it? There was nothing
in his creed against such a friendship, and everything for it.
Men of talent, not to mention genius, had ever sought inspiration
from those most capable of imparting it, and this girl's beauty
and character were kindling his mind to that extent that he began
to hope he could now do some of the finest work of his life. The
fact that he felt towards her the strongest friendly regard was
in itself enough, and Van Berg was too good a modern thinker to
dispute with facts, especially agreeable ones.
The practical outcome of the friendship which he lost no chance of
manifesting that morning, was that Mr. Mayhew, in an easy, informal
manner, extended his invitation, and the artist accepted in a way
that proved he was constrained by something more than courtesy or
a sense of duty, and Conspirator Number Two walked down Broadway
muttering (as do all conspirators): "Those young people are liable
to stumble into paradise at any moment."
"How did you manage to get through a hot August day in town after
you were released from durance here?" asked Van Berg.
"I do not know that it required any special management," replied
Ida demurely. "I suppose YOU took a nap after your severe labors
of the morning."
"Now you are satirical. My labor was all in the afternoon, for I
worked from the time you left me till dusk."
"Didn't you stop for lunch or dinner?" exclaimed Ida, with surprise.
"Not a moment."
"Why, Mr. Van Berg, what was the matter with you? It will never
do for me to come here and waste your forenoons if you try to make
up so unmercifully after I'm gone."
"You were indeed altogether to blame. Some things, like fine music
or a great painting or--it happened to be yourself yesterday--often
cause what I call my working moods, when I feel able to do the best
things of which I'm capable. Not that they are wonderful or ever
will be--they are simply my best efforts--and I assure you I'm not
foolish enough to waste such moments in the prosaic task of eating."
"I'm only a matter-of-fact person. Plain food at regular intervals
is very essential to me."
He looked up at her quickly and said: "Now you are mentally laughing
at me again. I assure you I ate like an ostrich after my work was
over. I even upset the dignity of an urbane Delmonico waiter."
Ida bit her lip as she recalled certain resemblances on her own
part to that suggestive bird, but she said sympathetically: "It
must be rather stupid to dine alone at a restaurant."
"I found it insufferably stupid, and I'm more grateful to your
father for his invitation than you would believe."
Ida could scarcely disguise her pleasure, and with mirthful eyes
she said:
"Really, Mr. Van Berg, you place me in quite a dilemma. I find
that in one mood you do not wish to eat at all, and again you say
you have the rather peculiar appetite of the bird you named. Now
I'm housekeeper at present, and scarcely know how to provide. What
kind of viands are best adapted to artists and poets, and---"
"And idiots in general, you might conclude," said Van Berg, laughing.
"After sitting so near me at the table all summer you must have
noticed that nothing but ambrosia and nectar will serve my purpose."
Ida's laughing eyes suddenly became deep and dreamy as she said:
"That time seems ages ago. I cannot realize that we are the same
people that met so often in Mr. Burleigh's dining-room, and in
circumstances that to me were often so very dismal."
"Please remember that I am not the same person. I will esteem it
a great favor if you will leave the man you saw at that time in
the limbo of the past--the farther off the better."
"You were rather distant then," Ida remarked with a piquant smile.
"But am I now? Answer me that," he said so eagerly that she was
again mentally enraged at her tell-tale color, and she said hastily:
"But where am I to find the ambrosia and nectar that you will expect
this evening?"
"Any market can furnish the crude materials. It is the touch of
the hostess that transmutes them."
"Alas," said Ida, "I never learned how to cook. If I should prepare
your dinner, you would have an awful mood to-morrow, and probably
send for the doctor."
"I would need a nurse more than a doctor."
"I know of an ancient woman--a perfect Mrs. Harris," said Ida,
gleefully.
"Wouldn't you come and see me if I were very ill?"
"I might call at the door and ask how you were," she replied,
hesitatingly.
"Now, Miss Ida, the undertaker would do as much as that."
"Our motives might differ just a little," she said, dropping her
eyes.
"Well," said the artist, laughing, "if you will prepare the dinner,
I'll risk undertaker, ancient woman, and all, rather than spend
such another long stupid evening as I did last night. I expected
to meet you at the concert garden again."
"That's strange," she said.
"I should say rather that I hoped to meet you and your father there.
Would you have gone if I had asked you?"
"I might."
"I'll set that down as one of the lost opportunities of life."
"Why didn't you listen to the music?"
"Well, I didn't. I thought I'd inflict my stupidity on you for
awhile, and came as far as your doorsteps before I remembered that
I had not been invited; so you see what a narrow escape you had."
In spite of herself Ida could not help appearing disappointed as
she said, a little reproachfully, "Would a friend have waited for
a formal invitation?"
"A friend did," replied Van Berg regretfully; "but he won't again."
"I'm not so sure about that; my music must have frightened you
away."
"I listened until I feared the police might think I had designs
against the house. I didn't know you were a musician. Miss Mayhew,
I'm always finding out something new about you, and I'm going to
ask you this evening to sing again for me a ballad the melody of
which reminded me of a running brook. It took hold on my fancy
and has been running in my head ever since."
"Oh, you won't like that; it's a silly, sentimental little thing.
I don't wonder you paused and retreated."
"Spare me, Miss Ida; I already feel that it was a faint-hearted
retreat, in which I suffered serious loss. I have accounted for
myself since we parted; how did YOU spend the time? Of course you
yawned over your morning's fatigue, and took a long nap."
"Indeed I did not sleep a wink. Why should I be any more indolent
than yourself? I read most of the afternoon, and drummed on the
piano in the evening."
"I know that I like your drumming, but am not yet sure about your
author; but he must be an exceedingly interesting one, to hold your
attention a long hot afternoon."
Ida colored in sudden embarrassment, but said, after a moment: "I
shall not gratify your curiosity any further, for you would laugh
at me again if I told you."
"Now, indeed, you have piqued my curiosity."
"Since you, a man, admit having so much of this feminine weakness,
I who am only a woman may be pardoned for showing just a little.
What work was it that so absorbed you yesterday afternoon that you
ceased to be human in your needs?"
"Miss Mayhew, you have been laughing at me in your sleeve ever since
you came this morning. I shall take my revenge on you at once by
heaping coals of fire on your head," and he turned towards her a
large picture, all of which was yet in outline, save Mr. Eltinge's
bust and face.
Ida sprang down on her knees before it, exclaiming: "O! my dear,
kind old friend! He's just speaking to me. Mr. Van Berg, I'll
now maintain you are a genius against all the world. You have
put kindness, love, fatherhood into his face. You have made it a
strong and noble, and yet tender and gentle as the man himself. I
never knew it was possible for a portrait to express so much," and
tears of strong, grateful feeling filled her eyes.
Was it success in his art or praise from her lips that gave her
listener such an exquisite thrill of pleasure? He did not stop
to consider, for he was not in an analytical mood at that time.
He was on the crest of the spiritual wave that was sweeping him
heavenward, or towards some beatific state of which he had not
dreamt before. His face glowed with pleasure as he said:
"Since it pleases you, it's no more than justice that you should
know that your visit was the cause of my success. Either your
laugh or your kind parting words brushed the cobwebs from my mind,
and I was able to do better work in a few hours than I might have
accomplished in weeks."
She tried to look at the picture more closely, but fast-coming
tears blinded her. Then she rose, and averting her face hastily,
wiped her eyes, as she said in a low tone: "I can't understand it
at all, and the memory of Mr. Eltinge's kindness always overcomes
me. Please pardon my weakness. There, I won't waste any more of
your time," and she returned to her chair. But her face still wore
the uncertainty of an April day.
"Your affection for Mr. Eltinge," he said gently, "is as beautiful
as it is natural. No manifestation of it needs any apology, and
least of all to me, for I owe to him far more than life. But I am
paining you by recalling the past," he said regretfully, as Ida's
tears began to gather again. "Let me try to make amends by returning
at once to the present and to my work. Before I go on any farther
with your portrait I want you to put this rose-bud in your hair,"
and from a hidden nook he brought a little vase containing only
one exquisite bud. Ida had barely time to see that it was in color
and size precisely like the emblem of herself that he had thrown
away, and for a few minutes she utterly lost her self-control. She
buried her face in her hands, and her low, stifled sobs filled Van
Berg with the keenest distress and perplexity.
"Miss Ida," he said earnestly, "I would rather every tear you are
shedding were a drop of my blood," but his words only made them
flow faster still.
Suddenly she sprang up, and turning her back upon him, dashed away
her tears almost fiercely. "Oh! this is shameful!" she exclaimed,
in low, indignant tones. "Mr. Van Berg, what must you think of
me? Please turn Mr. Eltinge's face away, for he is looking at me
just as he did when my heart was breaking, and--and--I've lost my
self-control, and I had better not come here till I can cease being
so weak and foolish."
"Is it weak to be grateful?" he asked, gently. "Is it foolish to
love one so thoroughly entitled to your love? I honor you for your
deep and tender affection for Mr. Eltinge, and every tear you have
shed proves to me that in this perfect flower I am now finding the
true emblem of yourself."
"No," she said, almost passionately, "I have no right to it. The
other one that you threw away is true of me, and always will be.
This but mocks me with its perfection. I would be a hypocrite if
I should put it in my hair, and smile complacently while you painted
it. My heart clings to the other emblem, and I know I must develop
as best I can, as that would have done after its destroyer was
taken away. No, Mr. Van Berg. I have seen myself in the strong,
sharp light of truth. If you are willing to be my friend, please
be an honest one. My faithful old friend in the country would
scarcely take my portrait if this perfect flower were introduced
with any such meaning as you attach to it, and I certainly would
be ashamed to give it to him. Mr. Van berg, we MUST let bygones
by bygones, or we never can get on. See how absurdly I have acted
both yesterday and to-day, and all through recalling the past.
Indeed, indeed, it will never do for me to come here again, and
if you can make such a marvellous likeness of Mr. Eltinge as you
have, I scarcely think there will be any need."
"My success with Mr. Eltinge's portrait is the result of a few happy
strokes that I might not be able to give again if I tried a year.
Believe me, Miss Mayhew, I not only wish to be an honest friend, but
a very considerate one. I promise never to urge you to do anything
that will cause you pain. I can understand how the features of
your kind friend have touched the tenderest chords of your heart,
and I respect your study fidelity to your conscience in refusing
to let me paint this bud in your hair; but you must also do me the
justice to believe that I meant no hollow compliment when I searched
for it among the florists. Must I throw this one away, too?" he
asked, with a glance that was very ardent for a friend; "for since
I obtained it for you, it must receive its fate at your hands only."
"I'll wear it, simply as your gift, with pleasure," and she fastened
it in her breastpin, so that its crimson blush rested against the
snowy whiteness of her neck.
He looked her full in the eyes and said, with low, sad emphasis:
"I do not deserve such respect." Then the knowledge that she was
harboring a purpose which troubled her conscience, but which she
could not abandon, became the cause of a trace of her old recklessness
of manner. She assumed a sudden gayety, as if she had stepped out
of shadows into too strong a light, as she said:
"Mr. Van Berg, you may well hesitate to bring the appetite you say
had last night to our house this evening, and if I stay a moment
longer, you will get no dinner at all. I have not been after the
crude material--as you call it--yet, and I'm told that there is not
a man living so amiable and philosophical, but that a poor dinner
provokes martyr-like expression, if nothing worse;" and with a smile
and a piquancy of manner that seemed peculiarly brilliant against
the background of her deep and repressed feeling, she again left
him.
He tried to return to his work, but found himself once more possessed
by the demon of unrest and impatience. The spiritual wave that
had been lifting him higher and higher was changing its character
and becoming a smoothly gliding current. It was so irresistible
that he never thought of resisting. "Why should he resist?" he
asked himself. Circumstances had interested him in this rare Undine
before she received a woman's soul; circumstances had entangled
his life and hers in what had almost been an awful tragedy; and
now circumstances, or something far beyond, were swiftly developing
before his eyes a spiritual loveliness that was the counterpart
of her outward beauty, and he assured himself that it would be the
greatest folly of his life to lose a trace of the exquisite process
that he might be privileged to see. What artist or poet has not
pictured himself the fair face of Eve as God first breathed into
her perfect clay the breath of life, or has not, in imagination,
seen the closed eyes opening in surprise and intelligence or kindling
with the light of love? And yet the change in Ida Mayhew seemed
to Van Berg far more wonderful and interesting; and to his fancy
if, instead of lying in the beauty of her breathless, statuesque
preparation for life, Eve had been possessed by a legion
of distorting imps, she would have been the type of the maiden he
first had recognized. But he had seen these evil spirits exorcised,
and in their place was coming a noble, womanly soul--sweet,
tender, and strong--and the perfect form and features seemed but
a transparent mould, a crystal vase into which heaven was pouring
a new and divine life. Why should he not long to escape from the
dusty matter-of-fact world and witness this spiritual repetition
of the most beautiful story of the past? Thus his philosophical
mind was able once more to reason the whole matter out clearly and
prove that his wish to annihilate the intervening hours before he
could dare to present himself to Ida Mayhew, was the most natural
and proper desire imaginable. He concluded that a walk through
Central Park might banish his disquietude, and leave time for a
careful toilet, since for some occult reason the occasion seemed
to him to require unusual preparation.
He knew he was unfashionably early when he rang Mr. Mayhew's
door-bell, but he had found it impossible to curb his impatience
to see in what new aspect Ida would present herself that evening.
A hundred times he had queried how she would appear in her own
home, how she would preside as hostess, and whether the taste of the
florid and fashionable mother would not be so apparent as to annoy
him like a bad tone in the picture. yes, that was Mrs. Mayhew's
parlor into which he was shown. It did not suggest the maiden who
had come to visit, nor the quiet, dignified gentleman Mr. Mayhew was
seen to be when at the touch of love's wand a degrading vice fell
away from him. But the artist could find no fault with the host
who greeted him promptly, and when, a few moments later, there was
a breezy rustle on the stairs and he turned to greet his hostess,
his face flushed with admiration and pleasure. It became evident
that the worshipper of beauty was in the presence of his divinity,
and his every glance burned incense to her honor. She had twined
a few rose-leaves in her hair, but wore no other ornament save
the rose he had given her in the morning, which evidently had been
kept carefully for the occasion, for it was unchanged, with the
exception that it revealed its heart a little more openly, as did
Ida herself. And yet she did her best to insure that her manner
should be no more cordial than her character of hostess demanded.
But in spite of all she could do, the light of exultation and
intense joy would flash into her eyes and tremble in her tones that
evening. A maiden would have been blind indeed had she not been
able to read the riddle of Van Berg's ardent friendship now, and
Ida had seen that expression too often not to know its meaning
well. In the morning she had strongly hoped, now she believed.
She no longer walked by faith but in full vision, and she trod with
the grace of a queen who knows her power in the realm that woman
loves best. The glow of her eyes, her repressed excitement, that
vitalized everything she said or did, mystified while they charmed
her guest. "She has become true to nature," he thought, "and like
nature is full of mysterious changes, for which we know not the
cause. At one time it is a sharp north wind, again the south wind.
This morning there was a sudden shower of tears, and before it was
over the sunlight of smiles flashed through them. Now she appears
like a June morning, and I pray the weather holds."
"Oh," thought Ida, in the wild, mad glee of her heart, "how can I
behave myself and look innocent and unconscious, seeing what I do?
He is my very good friend is he? I wish for only one such friend
in the world. It wouldn't be proper to have another. Oh, but isn't
it rich to see how unconscious he is of himself! He is passing into
an exceedingly acute attack of my own complaint, and the poor man
doesn't know what is the matter. I don't believe he ever looked
at Jennie Burton as he looks at me. Ah, Jennie Burton!" The
joyousness suddenly faded out of her face and she sighed deeply.
It seemed to Van Berg for a time that his June morning might become
clouded after all, but while his face was turned towards her with
the expression it now wore no sad thoughts or misgivings could
shadow Ida very long.