THE METROPOLIS FROWNS.
After the nuptial night, Paul disappeared from the knowledge of men.
Ouida and Horatio Nugent took up their lives together. New York society
indulged in a spasm of virtuous indignation; became monstrously
shocked; entered a vigorous protest; and pronounced upon the guilty
pair the judgment of condemnation. This mattered not to the lovers.
They could see, feel, comprehend, appreciate nothing but themselves,
their love and devotion to each other. The outside world was naught to
them. They builded their own universe, peopled with the inhabitants of
their own imagination, and well satisfied and pleased, existed in it.
But New York’s frown, in time, practically meant much to them. It meant
the withdrawal of art commissions to Ouida, and the absolute banishment
of Mr. Nugent from the practice of his profession. As time relentlessly
rolled on, their affairs grew complicated. She was compelled to
sacrifice her art treasures, her valued property, her jewels, and
still they awoke not from their fevered dream. The day came at last
when poverty and want crept in and found them in rude, uncomfortable
lodgings in a back street. By a strange fatality, of all her glorious
possessions, Ouida had alone retained “A Modern Hercules,” that piece
of statuary done from the form of her discarded husband.