I HAD won my mistress, but my mind misgave me that I had lost my friend.
Not from any signs of disappointment on his part, or any token that the
world outside us could have recognised. Even to myself, who had known
his innermost soul for years, there were times when I could cheat myself
into the belief that all was well between us. But, just as there are
times and seasons when Nature’s face and influence seem out of harmony
with our mental and physical being, even so, and quite as surely, it was
borne in upon me that his love for me was gone.
He had taken the news of my engagement well—too well, or so it seemed to
me.
Perhaps the greatest charm of our friendship in the good old days had
been the thought that I, alone of all his friends, had gained admission
to his innermost heart. By all the rest of the world his easy-going air
of calm indifference had been accepted for the reality. I alone knew
what deep intensities of passion burned beneath that calm exterior.
And this, I take it, is the very highest crown and glory of a love—to
feel that you alone have gained admission where no one else may tread.
Now, something, an indefinite something, had come between us. To all but
me the change was impalpable; only, if possible, an added charm and
courtesy in his relations with Marion and me. Nothing, I think, that she
herself could realise or detect, for his manner towards her had always
held in it a studied gentleness; only the gentleness was accentuated now.
But between him and me the veil had fallen. To those who did not know
him, it would seem strange, no doubt, that Eric had not long ago declared
his love. That he had never done so, I knew from Marion herself. Most
affectionate, she said, most devoted he had been; but never a word that
bordered upon love. At the last she had begun to doubt whether it really
existed at all, especially when his letters that reached her were so few
and silent on the subject.
But I, who knew him better than she did, saw in this very self-restraint
and reticence concerning his feelings only an additional indication of
their strength. His, I knew, was a singularly proud temperament, that
would never have ventured to risk the final issue till he had well
assured himself that failure was impossible. And for this assurance he
had been waiting—waiting through all his studentship at Rome, rarely
writing and never allowing an intimation of it to betray him in his
letters. Simply waiting, till the artist-fire within him should have
realised itself in action, and then offering his first great picture,
together with the gift of his love, at Marion’s feet.
And then, just when he had realised his heart’s desire of fame, and saw
the world’s honours placed within his grasp, he had come home only to
find that he had been forestalled by me, and that he had lost beyond
recall the greater prize of Marion’s love. Truly a test that might
imperil even the friendship of a life.
I would have given much to prevent him, had it been possible, from
hearing Marion’s last words on the chapel tower. Not that I could blame
myself in any wise. I had acted loyally to him throughout, and should
have continued to do so, had not Fate on a sudden taken the arbitrament
into her own hands, and left me no faintest loophole for deciding
otherwise than I did. But considering that I had satisfied my
conscience, I felt strangely disquieted by the result. Of the reticence
I had imposed on myself through long months, and of my determination to
await his return for the decision of the issue, he could know nothing.
And if he had gained the faintest suspicion that I knew of his love, my
action, I felt sure, must wear the appearance of one who had been
deliberately working to supplant his friend; worse still, had
precipitated the issue so soon as the rumour was forthcoming of his
probable return. Worse, too, than all was the possibility that he had
heard nothing of my residence at Fleetwater or my growing love for
Marion. All this, though wholly unavoidable, as I neither knew nor could
discover his address, must needs in his eye seem the very silence of
premeditation, which had been waiting to make the disclosure till the
result should be irremediable.
But if he had indeed heard our conversation, of which I could feel no
doubt, he never by a word alluded to it. With the warmth with which we
had parted, with the same he met me again. “He was glad,” he said, “that
his two best friends were to be drawn closer to him still,” and, laughing
in his old frank way, had added that “we two had not been long in
discovering the affinity between us.” This faintest gleam of satire was
the only intimation he allowed himself of the feeling that lay buried in
his heart.
Eric had hurried his departure from Rome, because the summer heat had set
in earlier than usual that year, and because the work still left for him
to do could be done equally well at home as abroad. Then he entered with
spirit into the history of his travels. And how it was the Museum at
Madrid, and the work of Velasquez in particular, that had fired his
imagination and stimulated his activity to try and do likewise.
“You should just see his pictures,” he said, “and what that man can do.
Why, his horses and riders come galloping to you out of the canvas! Even
that scoundrel Philip II., perhaps the worst and basest coward that ever
lived in history, gains something of distinction and nobility by the
touch of his pencil. And he can paint you an atmosphere and distance in
which a man can breathe and walk. And what does he do it all with? No
flaming, gorgeous colours like Titian’s and Tintoret’s, but all in quiet
greens and greys and browns that would be dull as ditchwater in any other
hand. Opinions, I know, differ, but to me at any rate he has always
seemed the greatest of Art’s great Trinity—Titian, Rembrandt, and
himself. And to him I owe everything. He it was who read me the lesson
that I have tried to learn—to decide what I wanted to paint, and then go
straight for it, letting all the accessories and inessentials come in at
the end where they can.”
Yes; it was another and a different Eric who was talking to us now from
the one with whom I had parted nearly two years ago. The indolent
dreamer of those days had been transfigured into the man with a purpose.
And I hoped, as I heard him, that he had made a mistress of his art, and
might find in his devotion to her the happiness which we are told she
always gives to those who worship her with a whole and undivided purpose.
Three days later he left us, to finish, he told us, the first great
picture he had attempted. It was already too late for the Academy, but
competent judges thought so highly of its merits that he intended to risk
its first appearance in the almost fiercer light of a London show-room.
“Of course,” he added, “you two must be the first to see it.”