XVII
“I’m going to tell you the story of Anne Page as I know it,”
said Fontenelle, as they sat in a corner of the almost deserted
smoking-room. “You may hear all sorts of versions, and I should like
you to listen now to the true one.”
He smiled, as he lighted a cigarette.
“You, also, are a student of psychology, doctor, and it has always
seemed to me that Anne Page is a singularly interesting study.
“Nowadays in this age of modern thought, perhaps I should rather say in
this age of fads and cranks, through which men and women are groping
towards a different conception of life, her conduct would not have been
so amazing.
“If she had been a modern woman, filled with the latest ideas of the
sanctity of passion, whatever that may mean; the duty of leading her
own life, and so forth, one might class her with a number of earnest
feminine enthusiasts whose brains, like the old bottles of Scripture,
are unequal to the strain of the new wine of recent ideas.”
“She doesn’t fit in _there_,” returned the doctor, smiling.
“Think of it!” exclaimed François with sudden animation. “A simple
gentle woman of twenty years ago. A woman who had led the narrowest
of lives; ignorant of men; ignorant of passion--till at the age of
thirty-seven she falls in love, and is loved by a man ten years younger
than herself. And that man, René Dampierre.”
The doctor started. “You mean the painter?”
François nodded. “She was his mistress for three years.”
Both men smoked in silence for a few moments.
“One might have guessed,” said the doctor quietly, “that she would
choose a lover worthy of her.”
“Anne is an unconscious artist,” returned Fontenelle. “It was the most
beautiful love affair I have ever known. The only perfect one--thanks
to her courage and self-sacrifice.
“Anne is a simple woman in the sense that all her emotions are
unsophisticated, original, generous. But she is also the wisest woman I
ever met.
“She knew René better than he knew himself. That is to say, she knew
men--or rather divined their natures, by her sixth sense of intuition.
“She might have married him. He wanted to marry her. But she knew what
the result would be.
“Oh, René was not a brute,” he exclaimed in answer to his companion’s
sudden movement. “Far from it. Except for his genius, he was the
average kindly natured man. But Anne very wisely took his genius into
account. He was not the man to marry, and she knew it. She is proud, as
only a woman of her type can be proud. And then--here felt the artist
in life--this was her first and last passion, the only vital emotion
she had ever experienced in an existence otherwise incredibly grey,
incredibly monotonous. She wanted to make it a perfect memory for
herself, as well as for him.”
He paused a moment, throwing back his head against the padded chair,
while he watched the rings of smoke he was blowing.
“And so,” he went on presently, “she made a resolve which few
women would have found the courage either to make, or what is more
important--to keep. She determined to stay with him only while his
first passion lasted. She made up her mind to go even before the first
cloud was in the sky,--at any rate before it was visible to _him_.
Women have keener eyes than men for rising clouds.”
The doctor was silent. “Rightly or wrongly,” he went on, “she felt that
only in this way, only by running no risk of injuring either him or his
career, she was justified in taking her little measure of happiness.
She knew him very well,” he added meditatively. “René was as weak as
most of us, weaker than some perhaps, where women are concerned. He
would have been unfaithful, but he could never take his unfaithfulness
callously. He would have been torn perpetually between his desires, and
his dread of hurting her. And his work would have suffered terribly.
Anne was right to go.”
“You speak as an artist,” remarked the doctor drily.
“I can speak in no other way,” returned François. “René Dampierre was a
great man with a definite work to do.”
“But Dampierre,--René Dampierre?” The doctor uttered the name with
respect. “He must have died soon afterwards, surely?”
“Eighteen months afterwards. But not, I regret to tell you, of a broken
heart.”
François placed the end of his cigarette in the ash-tray before him,
and ground it to powder. His smile was a curious blend of sadness and
irony.
“It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. The result of a fall from his horse. He was riding at Chantilly.”
“And you mean that----?”
“That Anne was right to go. She knew the woman before René himself
guessed the truth. She suffered I know, or perhaps as I _don’t_ know.
But not so horribly, I think, as they would both have suffered if she
had stayed. And she made her exit with dignity.” He smiled again. “I am
a Frenchman, doctor, and I suppose the love of _le beau geste_ is in my
blood. I take off my hat to Anne Page.”
When Dr. Dakin spoke, it was in a voice from which he could not banish
indignation.
“It seems incredible! That he could forget a woman like that, I mean.”
His own faithful nature rose up in revolt at the outrage to all his
sentiments of enduring love.
“He didn’t,” returned François quickly. “Anne had no real rival. She
may rest in peace. Fate was kind to her--and perhaps to him,” he added.
“Their love while it lasted, was perfect, and death settled the future.
You are thinking that if any woman was worthy of fidelity it was
Anne Page? I agree with you. But when a woman late in life falls in
love with a genius----” he made a gesture with his hand, and left the
sentence unfinished.
“Tragic, doctor, I admit. But it’s life,--and Anne knew and accepted
it.”
The faint irony which he could seldom keep out of his voice, was almost
submerged by something that sounded like real emotion.
“You knew them both very well, of course?” asked Dr. Dakin, after quite
a long silence. “When they were together, I mean.”
“I was with them nearly every evening, when they entertained all the
men best worth knowing, in Paris. It must have struck you that Anne is
a woman of unusual mental distinction?”
“She is a very brilliant woman.”
“That is easily discernible when, as with you, she has a chance of real
conversation. She has naturally a keen quick mind, and she learnt to
talk in a very admirable school.
“The evenings at the flat in the Rue de Fleurus are still remembered in
Paris.”
He smiled to himself, as though in thought he had gone back to those
evenings.
“I wish I could put before you doctor, the charm of their home
life. There has been nothing like it since. That sounds terribly
middle-aged, doesn’t it? I realize that I’m growing old, when I think
of the society of twenty years ago, as incredibly brilliant and
fascinating.
“At any rate it was composed of the men and women who have since made
their mark on our age. They are well known names, at any rate to a man
like you who interests himself in our countrymen as well as in your own.
“Among the painters there were Giroux, and Bussières, and Deslon. All
men associated with the Impressionist movement. Thouret the novelist,
and Dacier the poet, were intimate friends. They met Anne first at
Fairholme Court, with me, and they were always devoted to her. Then
there was Matignon the critic, a fine old man, who adored her. And
Bellet, and Courtois--I could go on quoting indefinitely. They had a
flat in the Rue de Fleurus, beautiful as only Anne knows how to make
a home beautiful. It overlooked the Luxembourg gardens, and was close
to my present studio. I remember it always full of sunshine, and I can
see Anne arranging the flowers, (every room was full of flowers), and
looking up from them to laugh.
“She was so radiantly happy it was a joy to see her. And she grew so
beautiful. She learnt to dress, of course. Beautiful dress is one of
her instincts, as you see even now. What a hostess she was! She became
the fashion in our set,--René’s and mine. The men raved about her.
They found _piquante_, that touch of English shyness and modesty which
she combines so oddly with dignity. She held a real salon, and a very
brilliant one too, in the Rue de Fleurus. Those were her _beaux jours_.”
“I can imagine it,” said the doctor.
“That sort of _ménage_ is only possible in Paris,” observed François.
“Even there, it’s not without its difficulties. But she surmounted them
by her very unconsciousness and simplicity. Some of the women even,
were won over. One or two of the wives of men in René’s circle were
her intimate friends. They went to her as we all did, for advice and
sympathy.”
“Just as we all go now to be consoled,” put in Dr. Dakin.
“Precisely. And one of the secrets of her power of drawing confidence,
is that Anne is by nature a maternal woman--a mother.”
“That’s the pity of it.”
“I agree. Life hasn’t given her everything. But at least it gave her
three unforgetable years, and a memory which has kept her sweet and
fresh and young as in her girlhood she could never have been.”
“And she went away,” said the doctor gently, “in the midst of her
happiness?”
“She went away quietly, simply, with no fuss, as she does everything.
With no farewell scene, or anything of that sort. She left him a
letter, and with me, a message. The hardest I ever had to deliver in my
life.”
Fontenelle got up, and threw the end of his cigarette into the fire.
“And then she travelled?”
“For years. When they were together, she and Dampierre went to Italy
every spring. I believe she has gone over all the old ground since
then. She seems to have gone half over Europe as well. I used to get
letters from Athens, from Constantinople, from Naples, Rome, Florence.
Fortunately she was a rich woman, able to work off her restlessness.”
He laughed a little. “That was one of her adorable simplicities.
It never occurred to her that the possession of a fortune made any
difference to the situation. She only looked upon it as a means of
independence and freedom when her happiness should come to an end. And
she was right. René never thought of it either. In some ways he was as
childlike and as unworldly a creature as she. He had inherited a fairly
good income from his father. He would not have known what to do with
more. That’s Anne Page’s story, doctor. I don’t know how it strikes an
Englishman, but to me it seems rather a wonderful one because of the
type of woman to whom it belongs.”
“Yes,” returned Dr. Dakin meditatively. “One would have thought that
convention, or religious prejudice----”
Fontenelle laughed. “She is untouched by either. _C’est un vrai
caractère, cette chère Anne Page!_ Until she came to Paris, she hadn’t
mixed enough with the world even to _know_ its conventions. Religion?
Well, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them,’ and if the fruits of the
Spirit are faith and hope, and the charity which suffers long and is
kind, there never was a woman who has more absolutely attained the
results of religion. It’s not a satisfactory result for the moralist, I
admit,” he added.
“But in this very interesting and amazing world, the moralists don’t
have it all their own way,” observed the doctor.
“So far as creeds and dogmas are concerned, Anne is a born pagan. It
is not that she has examined and rejected them. They simply don’t
appeal to her nature. When as young men we first met her, we called her
_Flora_, amongst ourselves. She struck us even then as a curious blend
of Madonna and goddess. And the physical appearance has a mental and
moral parallel. I remember once when I wanted to tease her, I asked
what had become of her religion.
“She looked at me with those childlike eyes of hers and said:
“‘I never had any,--in the sense you mean. By being with René I’m not
hurting any one. And it’s only by hurting people one does wrong.’
“Then--I admit it was cruel of me, but I was curious--I said that some
people had refrained from doing what she had done, for the sake of
example to humanity. Her reply was ‘But apart from religion, people
haven’t yet decided what _is_ the right way to arrange their lives.’”
Dr. Dakin smiled. “In view of the modern ferment of opinion, she was
right there.”
François pushed his chair back, with a movement of impatience.
“Well now what’s to be done? The tale of her incredibly evil past will
spread I suppose, and Dymfield will become impossible.”
He laughed rather savagely.
“It’s quite an amusing notion that scandal should attack a gentle woman
of Anne’s age. Yet I imagine that few of the natives of a village
possess a sense of humour.”
“I don’t think the story will spread. The vicar as I told you is
absolutely incredulous, and no one else has heard it.”
“Except Madame?” hinted François. “I don’t wish to suggest an
unkindness. But women, you understand? A whisper to a dear
friend--_hein_?”
“My wife is devoted to Miss Page,” said the doctor shortly. “I shall
warn her; but she will be indignant at the mere suggestion of betrayal.”
“_Parfaitement!_” returned François with a bow. “Pardon me. You will
probably find Miss Page in Paris,” he added. “She was expected to-day.”
“So much the better. It will be a great pleasure.”
The doctor rose. “Good-night,” he said, extending his hand cordially.
“And thank you for this talk. Perhaps if you decide not to go to Egypt,
you will do us the honour of staying with us a little later, when my
wife comes back? Our friendship for Miss Page makes a bond between us,”
he added, in his pleasant sincere voice.
François met his eyes for an instant. They were full of the kindliness
and instinctive liking he felt for the man he was addressing.
“A thousand thanks. But I think I am almost certain to go to Egypt.”
“Another time then. I shall only say _au revoir_.”
François followed him into the hall, and watched him step into a
hansom, and give the address of his hotel to the driver.
When he turned away, there was a curious expression about his lips,
which presently deepened into a smile that was partly cynicism, partly
something else.
He was reflecting on the curious encounters liable to befall a man like
himself. He thought of the evening’s conversation, and smiled again
to think how completely till this moment he had failed to realize the
humour of its friendly nature.
“_C’est un honnête homme. Il ne méritait pas ça----_”
François dismissed the subject of Dr. Dakin’s deserts with a mental
shrug, as he went upstairs to his room, in which a bright fire was
burning.
XVIII
François drew up an armchair close to the blaze, and lighted his pipe.
His thoughts at first dwelt upon the man with whom he had just
parted--a loyal straight, good fellow if ever there was one,
he decided. The verdict was accompanied by a greater sense of
self-dissatisfaction, a sensation nearer to shame and regret that he
had for years experienced.
It was an uncomfortable attitude of mind, and with characteristic
love of ease, he hastened to obliterate it, by turning his attention
elsewhere.
His conversation with the doctor had conjured up so many mental
pictures of the past, that he scarcely knew which of them to examine
first.
The salon in Anne Page’s flat, rose before him. With the retentive
memory of a painter, François recalled minutely every detail of the
charming room.
He saw the deep-red curtains drawn across the three windows, the
rose-coloured carpet, the lights shining like stars between the
flowers. He saw Anne standing near the table at which coffee was
served, receiving her guests with her lovely smile, and eager words of
welcome.
He remembered to the smallest detail of lace and trimming, a dress
she often wore in the evening, a gown of purple silk which suited so
admirably, her hair and the soft whiteness of her neck.
Giroux and Bussières were talking to her, and he watched with amusement
their excited faces, and vehement gestures.
It was the evening after René had shown his new pictures.
There had been a crowd of his friends in the studio all the afternoon;
a crowd of eager interested men and women, standing before the canvases
now so well known, so greatly prized.
Bussières and Giroux he knew were talking of the latest picture, his
masterpiece--the famous picture of the lady in the green dress, leaning
back upon the sofa.
François looked round the room already filled with people.
He saw the white head of Matignon the critic, towering above the rest.
He saw the dark alert face of Thouret bent towards Madame Valory, the
painter of pastels delicate and fragile as herself. He saw Courtois the
sculptor, in animated discussion with Bellet the new poet of audacities
in rhythm. He heard René’s sudden amused laugh, and turned to look at
him, as he moved from one group to the other, a little flushed and
excited, his fair hair ruffled, his slim yet athletic figure suggesting
the Englishman of sport and open-air pastimes, rather than the
brilliant French painter he had even then become.
Conspicuous among the crowd was the lady whose portrait he had recently
painted.
Blanche Aubriot was the wife of an elderly _roué_, who regarded her
very pronounced flirtations with an indifference equal to that which
she on her side extended towards his infidelities.
She was a beautiful young woman of two or three and twenty, childless,
soulless, and much admired.
To-night she wore the green dress of the picture, and held her court
with her usual piquante vivacity.
François regarding the scene with critical and observant eyes, noticed
how frequently her glance wandered in René’s direction, and with
amusement, her oft-repeated efforts to attract his attention.
His own eyes turned again to Anne, where she stood surrounded by
friends, laughing and talking.
He watched her to-night with peculiar admiration.
Curiously enough Dampierre had never painted her.
Once soon after they had settled in their apartment, François had
spoken of it as a foregone conclusion.
“She’s just your type--the essentially feminine type of woman.”
Greatly to his surprise, René shook his head.
“_C’est impossible_,” he said conclusively.
François wondered, but the conversation turned immediately upon other
matters, and it was only just before he took leave, when Anne was out
of the room, that his friend took a book from one of the shelves, and
turning over the leaves, handed it to him at an open page.
“That’s why I can’t paint her,” he said.
The poem he touched with his forefinger was Browning’s song beginning--
“_Nay, but you who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?_”
François read it aloud, and came to the last few lines--
“_Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!_”
“For _praise_, read _paint_,” said René, taking the book and closing
it. “It’s the same thing. You’re the man to paint her. Ask her to sit
for you.”
François had always delayed to avail himself of the suggestion.
To-night he determined to delay no longer. Crossing the room, he joined
the little group round Anne, and presently drew her away.
“I haven’t had a word with you this evening,” he said. “And now you
must give me one, or even two. About that portrait. I think the time
has come. When will you sit for me?”
Even at the moment, he was struck by the curious expression which
crossed her face.
When afterwards he tried to analyze it, he could only think of the face
of a woman who expecting a signal of some sort, had heard, and accepted
it.
“When would you like me to come?” she asked.
She was standing at the end of the room by the fire, and as she raised
her eyes, François saw in them the look which did not escape him when
he came to paint them.
They discussed the matter for a few moments. Various engagements on
both sides postponed the first sitting for a fortnight, but a day was
finally arranged.
“How long will it take?” asked Anne.
He made a gesture of ignorance. “I don’t know. A month perhaps, with
luck. But this is going to be my masterpiece, Anne. I shall succeed, or
perish in the attempt. Have you got that flowered gown you used to wear
in the garden at Dymfield? I suppose not. Yes? _Très bien!_ Bring it, I
want to try an effect.”
He was interrupted by René, who came up at the moment, and laid his
hand lightly on Anne’s arm.
“I want you to go and talk to Matignon, dear,” he said in a low voice.
“He’s always bad tempered if you don’t pay him enough attention. Go and
make love to the old boy.”
A vague uneasiness passed from François’s mind at the sound of his
friend’s voice, always gentle when he spoke to Anne. It was even
gentler than usual now, and he did not fail to notice the caress of his
hand on her sleeve, nor the look of happy understanding between them,
as she moved away, smiling, to obey him.
“I’m arranging for her to come and pose. I’m going to begin the picture
at once,” he said.
“_Bon!_” returned René, his face lighting up. “You’ve taken your time
about it.”
“One hesitates to begin one’s masterpiece,” François retorted. “You who
do nothing else, except finish them, ought to have compassion on the
weaker brethren.”
René made a laughing gesture of menace.
“_Allons, mes amis ... mais calmez-vous donc!_” exclaimed Blanche
Aubriot at his elbow.
François looked down at her white shoulders, and experienced a
momentary feeling of repugnance which passed into self-ridicule, for
glancing at her indolent brown eyes soft as velvet, at her full red
lips, at her glossy hair, he acknowledged her beauty.
“Come and talk to me, Monsieur René,” she urged with the insistence of
a spoilt child. “You’re a great man, I know, but the lion condescends
to the mouse sometimes, doesn’t he?”
François followed them with his eyes as they moved away together.
“If she had said _cat_, I should have found no difficulty in reversing
the parts,” was his inward reflection.
* * * * *
The fire had died down, but as he sat before the smouldering ashes,
François was very far in space and time from the club bedroom in which
he was dreaming.
He was passing through successive stages of satisfaction and despair,
hope and baffling discouragement, while he painted Anne’s portrait.
After the first fortnight, she came every day, and every day she was
more silent.
He remembered this afterwards. At the time, engrossed heart and soul
in his picture, he did not notice her quietude. He was only half
consciously perplexed by a subtle difference in her expression which
he found hard to reconcile with his previous impression of her--a
difference which was at once his inspiration, and his despair.
“If only I can get that, I shall paint a great picture!” he exclaimed
one day involuntarily, breaking a long silence.
“What?” asked Anne.
He started, forgetting that he had spoken aloud.
“I don’t know.”
She smiled a little. “Then I’m afraid you won’t get it.”
“But I _have_!”
He almost shouted the words, one afternoon a week afterwards, when she
had stood patiently almost as long as the daylight lasted.
She looked at him with inquiring eyes, as he threw down his brush.
“I won’t touch it again! It’s there! It’s all right. _Mon Dieu!_ Anne,
do you hear me? I’ve painted a great picture.”
He came towards the stand, both hands outstretched, and helped her down.
“Come and look before the light goes,” he urged. “Why Anne----” his
triumphant tone changed abruptly to consternation. “You’re not ill,
dear? You’re trembling so. What a brute I am! I’ve kept you posing too
long. I forgot. Come and sit in this chair. Here’s a cushion. I’ll get
you some water.”
She shook her head. “I’m all right,” she assured him, trying to smile.
“I want to see the picture.”
He turned the easel towards her, and she looked at it a long time in
silence.
“Do you like it?” asked François at last anxiously.
“It’s too good for me. It’s idealized,” she said. “But it’s the best
thing you’ve ever done, François. I congratulate you. You’re right.
It’s your masterpiece.”
He felt a warm glow of pleasure. Anne as he had often acknowledged was
an admirable critic, instinctively a connoisseur, and her life amongst
painters had trained and sharpened her natural perception. Secretly
François stood in greater awe of Anne’s verdict on his work, than on
that of many of his fellow-craftsmen.
“You have suggested all the Dymfield garden in those flowers,” she said
after another silence.
“In you,” he returned quickly, wondering at the tone in her voice.