DREAMS AND SCHEMES.
Willard Frost’s observations rang in Robert Milburn’s ear, not without
effect, as he walked to his room that evening, albeit, his conscience
refuted the arguments. He whiled away an hour or more piecing together
the broken threads of their discussion. Frost had said, and in truth,
that Miss Baxter was the richest prize of the season. She had turned
all heads with her fabulous wealth. He had said, “A union of wealth
and genius is as it should be.” That speech had a mild influence over
Robert. There was something very soothing and agreeable to be called a
rising genius, and, then, the thought that other men would be gnashing
their teeth was a stimulant to his vanity.
Miss Baxter was a sharp girl, and she had an exquisite figure which she
dressed with the best of taste. What if her nose was a trifle snub, and
her mouth verging on the coarse, she had a large capital to contribute
to a copartnership.
But when love, or whatever else by a less pretty name we may call the
emotion which stirs within us, responsive to the glance or touch of
a woman, sweeps man’s nature as the harpist the strings of his harp,
all thoughts pass under the dominion of the master passion; even the
thought of self, with all its impudent assertiveness, changes its
accustomed force, and sinks to a secondary place.
Love is a disturber and routs philosophy, and as for matrimony, Robert
rather agreed with the philosopher who said, “You will regret it
whether you marry or not.” An old painter had once told him that in
bringing too much comfort and luxury into the home of the artist, it
frightened inspiration.
“Art,” he said, “needs either solitude, poverty or passion; too warm
an atmosphere suffocates it. It is a mountain wind-flower that blooms
fairest in a sterile soil.”
From the scene-house of Robert’s memory came visions strangely sweet;
they came like the lapse of fading lesson days, gemmed here and there
with joys, and crimsoned all over with the silken suppleness of youth
and its delights.
Again the glamour of gold and green lay over the warm South earth. New
leaves danced out in the early sunshine, dripping sweet odors upon all
below. Robins in full song made vocal the budding hedgerows from under
which peeped the hasty gold of the crocus flower. By fence and field
peach trees up-flushed in rosy growth, and the wild plum’s scented
snowing made all the days afaint and fair. And again the woods were
brave in summer greenery; hawthorn--dogwood, stood bridal all in white.
Matted honeysuckle, that opened as if by magic in the dewless, stirless
night, arched above a garden gate, wherefrom, with hasty thrift, tall
lilacs framed a girl in wreathen bloom.
From the moment the gleam of that sweet face of hers touched him, the
world, he felt, would lose its luster if Cherokee did not smile on him,
and him alone, of all the world of men.
All the wealth, fashion and talent of the rest of women in their
totality, were of no more meaning to him than the floating of motes in
the great sunbeam of his love for this girl. This fact made all other
resolutions impossible--glaringly impossible.
With this honest conviction in his manly breast he went to bed, and the
blessed visitor of peace placed fingers upon his eyelids to keep watch
until the morrow.
* * * * * *
Two ladies, in loose but becoming morning gowns, sat, at the
fashionable hour of eleven, breakfasting in a dainty boudoir in an
extension to a fine residence on Fifth Avenue. The table, a low
square table covered with whitest linen, was set before a great open
fireplace, where gas gave forth flashes of lurid lights which were
refracted by the highly polished surface of the silver tray, teapot,
sugar and creamer.
The elder lady had the morning paper in her lap and she sat sipping
her tea. She scarcely looked her four and forty. Youth was past, but
the charm of gracious maturity lay in her clear glance and about the
soft smiling mouth. The girl had turned her easy chair away from the
table, perching her pretty feet on the brass rail of the fender. Her
aristocratic brown-blonde head was bending over the _Herald_.
“Here is another puff about Willard Frost, the portrait painter,” she
said complacently. “He has become the rage; I suppose the fact that he
is a romantic figure of an unconventional type is one reason as well as
his artistic qualities.”
[Illustration: “‘He has become the rage.’” Page 23.]
“And, too, because he is unmarried,” said the elderly lady. “Society is
strange, and when the gods marry they lose caste. If he should bring
home one day a beautiful wife, I fancy few women would care about
sitting for portraits then.”
“I cannot understand that; why is it?” inquired the girl, innocently.
“Because women declare against women. I wouldn’t be surprised if they
were already angry with you.”
“Why?”
“I have thought that he fancied you and showed you preference.”
“He has been quite nice, but I thought it was generally understood that
he would make love to Miss Baxter.”
“I may be wrong, but I sometimes imagine you like him, and I do not
blame you either, my dear; many a girl has married less attractive men
than your artist.”
“Oh, he is handsome, has a magnificent build, and that voice--”
murmured the girl, clasping her hands over her knee and looking into
the fire.
The other watched her intently and said slowly: “I had hoped to save
you for my boy--he is our best gift from God, and you--come next.”
The girl smiled softly, “Oh, Fred doesn’t care for me; he says I remind
him of hay fields and yielding clover. I take it that he means I am too
‘fresh,’” observed the girl, half seriously.
“Not at all; what is purer and sweeter than to be forest-bred? Why,
after all these long years, I tire of my city fostering and long for
the South country where your mother and I grew into womanhood. And
while Fred chaffs you about being a country girl, he is really proud
of you. He often talks to me: ‘Why, mother,’ he tells me, ‘I never
saw anything like it; as soon as she appeared she shone; a sudden
brightness fills the place wherever she goes; a softened splendor comes
around.’ And dear, I am not blind, I see you are besieged by smiles and
light whispered loves--you hold all hearts in that sweet thrall; you
are the bright flame in which many moths burn.”
“You are both very, very, kind--Fred and you”--Here she was interrupted
by a maid entering with a card.
“Mr. Willard Frost.”
“Ah, Cherokee, what did I tell you? He has even taken the liberty of
calling at unconventional hours.”
As Frost waited below he nervously moved about; there was a sort of
sub-conscious discomfort, as of one whose clothes are a misfit. The
least sound added to his uneasy feeling.
“Am I actually in love with her?” he asked, “or does her maidenly and
becoming coyness excite my surfeited passion? Is it something that will
burn off at a touch, like a lighted sedge-field,” he reflected. “Would
I marry her if I could? Well, what’s the difference? The part I have
undertaken is a good one; I will see it through and risk the winning.”
When Cherokee appeared he thought her lovelier than ever. He looked
hungrily at her fair, high-bred face, her enigmatical smile that might
mean so much or so little. She gave him her hand in kindly welcome.
“You will pardon my stupidity to-day, for I shouldn’t have come feeling
so badly, and I should not have come at all had I not wanted a kind
word of sympathy,” he said, when the first salutations were received.
“You did quite right,” she answered, “burdens shared are easier
carried. What is your trouble?”
“I would not confide in many, but somehow I have always felt we were
vastly more than common friends. Do you feel that way about it?” he
asked, in weighing tones.
“I take great delight in your companionship,” she told him, frankly.
“And it is these subtle, intelligent sympathies which make you most
dangerously charming. Now, I have a question; do not answer me if you
think it wrong of me to ask, but did you ever like a man so well that
you fancied yourself married to him?”
She laughed a care-free, girlish laugh.
“Why no, now that you ask, I’m sure I never did.”
Then there was a long, uncomfortable pause, broken by saying: “Ah,
well, there’s time enough, only be sure that you know your heart, if
you have any; have you?”
She laughed again her gay little laugh. “I’ll tell him that if he ever
comes.”
He had a far-away look, and breathed long and deeply. Suddenly he spoke
up.
“Dearest love,” taking both her hands and looking with gravity into her
face, “I did not mean to say it yet, but I must. I love you--I love
you--and I would show it in a thousand ways. Be my wife.”
She listened to each word intently, her face neither flushed nor paled.
She spoke very deliberately: “I--your wife, Mr. Frost? No. You interest
me, but if I care for you, there is something that mars its fullness.
Forgive me for saying it plainly, but I do not love you.”
“But, little woman, you cannot but awaken to it sometime. It is a heart
of stone that will not warm to the touch of such love as mine. Love is
dependent upon contact; we are only the wires through which the current
throbs--lifeless before they are touched, and listless when sundered.”
He attempted to take her in his arms, but she slipped from his embrace,
and naively replied, “If that’s your theory, there’s one remedy: I’ll
break your circuit.”
“Was there ever such a tangle of weakness and strength in woman?”
he asked himself. He bit his lips and marvelled; he had again been
thwarted. Pretty soon he leaned heavily on the table, and looked the
embodiment of despair.
“What makes you so gloomy?” asked Cherokee, sweetly.
“Because I am a lost and ruined man. I never felt quite so alone and
friendless.”
“Why friendless? Tell me what it is that makes you so downhearted?” Her
tones were well calculated to reassure him.
“I am suffering from the inevitable misery which, as a ghost, follows
the erring,” he said, and his voice was hard.
“Tell me all about it, Mr. Frost, that I may be in sympathy with you.”
“Then I will tell you all,” raising a face that looked worn and
worried. “There is nothing of sentiment in my misfortune; as rascally
old Panurge used to put it, ‘I am troubled with a disease known as a
plentiful lack of money.’”
“Why, Mr. Frost, I thought you were rich; the world takes it that way.”
“I did possess a fair competency until two weeks ago, but an
unfortunate investment in Reading swept it away like thistledown in the
wind. The friends to whom I could apply for aid are in the same boat.
For one of them, I, very like the fool Antonio, have gone security for
a thousand dollars. To-morrow that must be paid else I lose my pound of
flesh, which, taken literally, means my studio, pictures, and, worst of
all, my reputation.”
“And you call yourself a fool for helping a friend; I am surprised at
that.”
“You are right. I shouldn’t feel that way, for he is noble beyond the
common; his faults, such as they are, have been more hurtful to himself
than to others.” Frost spoke magnanimously.
“Who is the friend?” she asked, so impulsively that it bore no trace of
impertinence.
“Pardon me, but I would not mention his name; however, you know him
quite well.”
Cherokee turned her face full upon him and asked bravely: “Will you let
me help you both?”
He appeared startled: “You little woman, you! What on earth could you
do but be grieved at a friend’s misfortune?” She little knew that all
this was but to abuse that intense, fond, clinging sympathy.
“I have fourteen hundred in my own name, will you use part of that?”
“Great heavens, no. I would become a beggar first!”
“But if I insist, and it will save you and--him?”
Willard Frost sat for a time without speaking; apparently he was
weighing some profound subject. At last he looked up and gathered
Cherokee’s hands in his.
“I appreciate the spirit that prompts you to make this heroic offer to
me. When will you need this money?”
“Not for two months yet, I expect to spend the winter in ‘Frisco’ with
Mr. and Mrs. Stanhope.”
“Are you absolutely in earnest about our using it?”
“Never was more in earnest in my lifetime,” she answered, solemnly.
“Then I will take it, though I feel humbled to the very dust to think
of these little hands saving me.”
He bent and kissed them as reverently as though she had been his patron
saint. As she gave him the check for one thousand dollars, Cherokee
thought his trembling hands told, but too well, of humbled pride.
“That was a stroke of genius--a decided stroke of genius,” he said to
himself, as he passed into the club house that day.