People in general thought Tom Claymore's nature cold and reserved
because his manner was so. He was reticent perhaps to a fault, but
the reticent man who is cold is a monster, and Tom was far from being
anything so disagreeable as that. His was the shy artistic temperament,
and the circumstances of his rather lonely life had fostered a habit
of saying little while he yet felt deeply, and since he took life
seriously, he seldom found himself disposed to open his heart in
ordinary conversation.
Even with his betrothed he had not yet outworn the reserve which every
year of his life had strengthened, and Celia, despite her betrothal, was
not wholly free from the common error of supposing that, because he did
not easily express his sentiment, he lacked warmth of feeling. She had
been his pupil in Boston, and it was for the sake of being near her
that he had established himself at Salem for the summer, making a
pretext of the fact that he had promised to paint the portrait of her
cousin, Ralph Thatcher.
Tom Claymore could not have told at what stage of his work upon this
portrait he became possessed of the idea that he had been unconsciously
painting rather the possibilities than the realities of his sitter's
face. At first he smiled at the thought as a mere fanciful notion; then
he strove against it; but he ended by giving his inspiration, or his
whim, free rein, and deliberately endeavoring to portray the noblest
manhood of which Ralph Thatcher's face seemed to him to contain the
germs. He felt a secret impatience with the young man, who, with wealth,
health, and all the opportunities of life, seemed still too much a boy
properly to appreciate or to use them; and as the portrait advanced, the
belief grew in Claymore's mind that, when it was completed, some effect
might be produced upon Thatcher by its showing him thus vividly the
possibilities of character he was wasting. The artist did not, it is
true, attach much importance to this notion, but when once he had given
himself up to it, he at least found much interest in following out his
endeavor. The idea of a sitter's being influenced by a portrait is by
no means a novel one among painters, and Claymore took pains to have
Thatcher see the picture as soon as it got beyond its early stages. He
wanted it to have to the full whatever influence was possible, and he
was eager to discover how soon its departure from an exact likeness
would become apparent to the original.
A curious complication followed. It was not long before it began to seem
to Tom that Ralph was growing up to the ideal the portrait showed. At
first he rejected the idea as utterly fanciful. Then he recalled an
experience a brother artist had related to him in Paris, where a girl
who had been painted in the dress of a nun worn at a fancy ball, came,
by brooding over the picture, to be so possessed with a belief in her
vocation that she ended by actually taking the veil. The cases were not
exactly parallel, but Claymore saw in them a certain similarity, in that
both seemed to show how a possibility might be so strongly expressed
on canvas as to become an important influence in making itself an
actuality. He became intensely interested in the problem which presented
itself. He had before this time remarked to Celia that Ralph only needed
arousing to develop into a noble man, and he began to speculate whether
it could be within his power to furnish the impulse needed--the filament
about which crystallization would take place all at once. He worked
slowly and with the utmost care, taking pains to have Thatcher at the
studio as much as possible even on days when he was not posing, so that
the picture might be constantly before his eyes; and of one thing at
least he was sure beyond the possibility of a doubt-- Ralph was
certainly developing.
"_Post hoc sed non ergo propter hoc_," he said to himself, in the Latin
of his school debating-society days; but secretly he believed that in
this case the effect was no less "because" than "after."
On the morning after Celia had talked with her betrothed about the
picture, Ralph gave the artist a sitting. The young man seemed so
preoccupied that Tom rallied him a little on his absence of mind,
inquiring if Thatcher wished his portrait to have an air of deep
abstraction.
"I was not thinking of that confounded old picture at all," the young
man responded, smiling. "I was merely--well, I do not know exactly how
to tell you what I was doing. Do you ever feel as if the reflective part
of you, whatever that may be, had gone into its office for private
meditation and shut your consciousness outside?"
"Yes," Tom answered; "and I always comfort myself for being excluded
by supposing that at least something of real importance must be under
consideration or it would n't be worth the trouble to shut the doors
so carefully."
"Do you?" returned the sitter. "I had a jolly old clerical uncle who
used to lock the door of his study and pretend to be writing the most
awe-inspiring sermons, when he really was only having a well-fed nap.
I am afraid," he went on, with a sigh and a change of manner, "that
there is little of real importance has ever gone on in my mind. Do you
know, I am half inclined to hate you."
The artist looked up in surprise.
"Hate me?" he echoed. "Why should you hate me?"
"Because you are everything that I am not; because you succeed in
everything and I never did anything in my life; because at this
poker-table of life you win and I lose."
A strange tinge of bitterness showed itself in Ralph's voice, and
puzzled Claymore. It was not like Thatcher to be introspective, or to
lament lost possibilities. The artist rubbed his brush on his palette
with a thoughtful air.
"Even if that were so," he said, "I don't see exactly why you should
vent your disappointment on me. I'm hardly to blame, am I? But of
course what you say is nonsense anyway."
"Nonsense? It is n't nonsense. I've done nothing. I know nothing. I'm
good for nothing; and the worst of it is that the girl I've wanted all
my life realizes it just as well as I do. She is n't a fool; and of
course she does n't care a rap about me."
The confession was so frankly boyish that Claymore had a half-impulse to
smile, but the feeling in it was too evidently genuine to be ignored.
One thing at least was clear: Ralph was at last beginning to be
dissatisfied with his idle, purposeless life. He had come to the
enlightenment of seeing himself as he might look to the eyes of the
woman he cared for. The reflection crossed Claymore's mind that some
disappointment in love might have brought about whatever change he had
observed in his sitter, and that any influence which he had ascribed
to the portrait had in reality come from this. The thought struck him
with a ludicrous sense of having befooled himself. It was as if some
gorgeous palace of fancy, carefully built up and elaborated, had come
tumbling in ruins about his head. He made a gesture, half comic, half
deprecatory, and laid down his palette.
"The light has changed," he said. "I can't paint any more to-day."