"THE NEW ART"
A tall, fair young man stood in the small alcove of Lady Swindon's
drawing-room, with his eyes fixed upon the door. He was accurately
dressed in the afternoon garb of a London man about town, and carried
in his hand, or rather in his hands, for they were crossed behind him,
that hall-mark of Western civilization--a well-brushed, immaculate
silk hat. Neither in his clothes nor personal appearance was there any
striking difference between him and the crowd of other young men who
thronged the rooms, except perhaps that he was a trifle better made,
and pleasanter to look at than most of them, and that the air of
boredom, so apparent on most of their faces and in their manners, was
in his case perfectly natural. As a matter of fact, he hated afternoon
receptions, and was only waiting for a favourable opportunity to make
his exit unnoticed.
"Paul, my boy, you don't look happy," exclaimed a voice in his ear.
Paul de Vaux turned upon the new-comer sharply. "Not likely to,
Arthur. You know I hate all this sort of thing, and, as far as I can
see, it's just a repetition of the usual performance--stale speeches,
lionizing, gossip, and weak tea. I consider you've brought me here
under false pretences. Where's the startling novelty you promised me?"
"All in good time," was the cool reply. "You'll thank your stars
you're here in a minute or two."
Paul de Vaux looked at his brother incredulously. "Some sell of yours,
I suppose," he remarked. "At any rate, no one here whom I have spoken
to seems to be expecting anything unusual."
Arthur--no one ever called him anything else--laughed, and beat an
impatient tattoo upon the floor with his foot. He was several inches
shorter than his brother, and altogether unlike him. Yet he, too, was
good-looking, in a certain way.
"That's just the beauty of it," he said. "Lady Swindon has prepared
a little surprise for her guests. She's just that sort of woman, you
know. Denison told me about it at the club, a few minutes before you
came in for lunch. I shouldn't have bothered you to come if I hadn't
known there was something good on."
"I dislike surprises," his brother answered wearily. "Half the
pleasure of a thing lies in anticipation, and surprises rob one of
that. Let us go, Arthur; there are plenty here to enjoy this novelty,
whatever it is. Come and have a weed at my rooms, and we'll talk over
something for to-night."
Arthur shook his head and laid his hand upon Paul's coat-sleeve.
"You don't know what's coming off, old fellow; I wouldn't miss it for
anything. Great Scott! there's the bishop. Wonder how he'll like it?
and there's Lady May over there, Paul. You're booked, old man, if she
looks this way."
Paul leant forward with a faint show of interest, and looked in
the direction indicated. "I thought that the Westovers went North
yesterday," he remarked. "Lady May said that they expected it."
"Likely enough. 'Gad! the performance is going to commence," Arthur
exclaimed, quickly. "Paul, you are going to have a new sensation. You
are going to see the most beautiful woman in the world."
There was a little hush, and every one had turned towards the upper
end of the room. Some heavy curtains had been rolled aside, disclosing
a space, only a few yards square, which had been covered by a tightly
stretched drugget. There was a little curious anticipation amongst the
uninitiated. Then the comparative silence was broken by the strains
of a waltz from a violin, somewhere in the background. No one had
ever heard it before. There was a wilder, dreamier air with it,
than anything Waldteufel had ever written. And, while every one was
wondering whose music it could be, a woman glided out from behind a
screen, and stood for a second swaying herself slightly in the centre
of the drugget. Even that slight rhythmical motion of her body seemed
to bring her into perfect sympathy with the curious melody which was
filling the hushed room. And while the people watched her, already, in
varying degrees, under the spell of that curious fascination which her
personality and the exercise of her art seldom failed to excite, she
commenced to dance.
Long afterwards Paul de Vaux tried to describe in words, that dance,
and found that he could not, for there was indeed a charm beyond
expression or portrayal in the slow, almost languid movements, full of
infinite and inexpressible witchery. Every limb of her body and every
feature of her face followed, with a sort of effortless grace,
the movements of her feet. Yet the general effect of the whole was
suggestive of a sweet and dainty repose, voluptuous yet refined,
glowing with life, yet dreamily restful. In a certain sense her
physical movements, even her body itself, seemed merged and lost in
the artistic ideal created and born of her performance. And so it
was that he carried away that day no vivid thought-portrait of her
features, only a confused dream of a beautiful dusky face, rising
above a cloud of amber draperies, the lips slightly parted in a
wonderful smile, and a pair of heavily-lidded eyes, which, more than
once, had rested upon him, soft, dark, and lustrous. After all, it was
but a tangled web of memories, yet, such as it was, it became woven
into the pattern of his life, wonderfully soft and brilliant beside
some of those dark, gloomy threads which fate had spun for him.
The performance ended, as such performance should end, suddenly,
and without repetition. Her disappearance was so swift and yet so
graceful, that for a moment or two people scarcely realized that she
was gone. It was wonderful what a difference her absence made to the
room. The little stretch of drugget looked mean and bare. To Paul de
Vaux it seemed as though some warm, beautiful light, omniscient and
richly coloured, had suddenly burnt out, and left a damp chilliness in
the air. The silence was gloomy enough after that wonderful music, but
the babble of tongues which presently arose was a hundred times
worse. He found himself chafing and angry at the commonplacisms which
everywhere greeted his ear. Lady Swindon's afternoon entertainment had
been a great success, and every one was telling her so, more or
less volubly. There were some there, a handful of artists and a few
thoughtful men, who were silent, or who spoke of it only amongst
themselves in subdued voices. They recognised, in what had happened
that afternoon, the dawn of a new art, or rather the regeneration of
an old one, and they discussed in whispers its possible significance
and influence. She was an artist, that woman. No one doubted it. But
the woman was there as well as the artist. Who was she? Would she
realize the sanctity of her mission, and keep herself fit and pure for
its accomplishment? Had she character to sustain her, and imagination
to idealize her calling? She was on a pinnacle now, but it was a
pinnacle as dangerous as the feet of woman could press. If only she
could keep herself unspotted from the world, which would do its best
to drag her down, they all felt, painter, poet, and musician, that her
influence with the age might rank with their own. But was it possible?
A certain Diana-like coldness had been apparent to those who had the
eyes to see it, even in her most voluptuous movements. They knew
that it was not assumed for the sake of adding piquancy to her
performance--it was there indeed. But side by side with it there
were unprobed depths of passion in her soft, deep eyes; a slumbering
passion even in the sinuous, graceful movements of every limb. Some
day the struggle would come, even if it had not already commenced.
The woman against the artist--the woman tempted and flattered by a
thousand tongues, and dazzled with visions of all those things so
naturally sweet to her, her own nature even, so keenly susceptible to
love and sympathy, siding with the enemy. This, all against what? Only
that inward worshipping of all things sweet and pure and lofty, which
is the artist's second life. The odds were heavy indeed. No wonder
that the select few who spoke of her that afternoon should shake their
heads and look grave.