Five days later Hedger was a restless passenger on a dirty, crowded
Sunday train, coming back to town. Of course he saw now how unreasonable
he had been in expecting a Huntington girl to know anything about
pictures; here was a whole continent full of people who knew nothing
about pictures and he didn't hold it against them. What had such things
to do with him and Eden Bower? When he lay out on the dunes, watching the
moon come up out of the sea, it had seemed to him that there was no
wonder in the world like the wonder of Eden Bower. He was going back to
her because she was older than art, because she was the most overwhelming
thing that had ever come into his life.
He had written her yesterday, begging her to be at home this evening,
telling her that he was contrite, and wretched enough.
Now that he was on his way to her, his stronger feeling unaccountably
changed to a mood that was playful and tender. He wanted to share
everything with her, even the most trivial things. He wanted to tell her
about the people on the train, coming back tired from their holiday with
bunches of wilted flowers and dirty daisies; to tell her that the
fish-man, to whom she had often sent him for lobsters, was among the
passengers, disguised in a silk shirt and a spotted tie, and how his wife
looked exactly like a fish, even to her eyes, on which cataracts were
forming. He could tell her, too, that he hadn't as much as unstrapped his
canvases,--that ought to convince her.
In those days passengers from Long Island came into New York by ferry.
Hedger had to be quick about getting his dog out of the express car in
order to catch the first boat. The East River, and the bridges, and the
city to the west, were burning in the conflagration of the sunset; there
was that great home-coming reach of evening in the air.
The car changes from Thirty-fourth Street were too many and too
perplexing; for the first time in his life Hedger took a hansom cab for
Washington Square. Caesar sat bolt upright on the worn leather cushion
beside him, and they jogged off, looking down on the rest of the world.
It was twilight when they drove down lower Fifth Avenue into the Square,
and through the Arch behind them were the two long rows of pale violet
lights that used to bloom so beautifully against the grey stone and
asphalt. Here and yonder about the Square hung globes that shed a
radiance not unlike the blue mists of evening, emerging softly when
daylight died, as the stars emerged in the thin blue sky. Under them the
sharp shadows of the trees fell on the cracked pavement and the sleeping
grass. The first stars and the first lights were growing silver against
the gradual darkening, when Hedger paid his driver and went into the
house,--which, thank God, was still there! On the hall table lay his
letter of yesterday, unopened.
He went upstairs with every sort of fear and every sort of hope clutching
at his heart; it was as if tigers were tearing him. Why was there no gas
burning in the top hall? He found matches and the gas bracket. He
knocked, but got no answer; nobody was there. Before his own door were
exactly five bottles of milk, standing in a row. The milk-boy had taken
spiteful pleasure in thus reminding him that he forgot to stop his order.
Hedger went down to the basement; it, too, was dark. The janitress was
taking her evening airing on the basement steps. She sat waving a
palm-leaf fan majestically, her dirty calico dress open at the neck. She
told him at once that there had been "changes." Miss Bower's room was to
let again, and the piano would go tomorrow. Yes, she left yesterday, she
sailed for Europe with friends from Chicago. They arrived on Friday,
heralded by many telegrams. Very rich people they were said to be,
though the man had refused to pay the nurse a month's rent in lieu of
notice,--which would have been only right, as the young lady had agreed
to take the rooms until October. Mrs. Foley had observed, too, that he
didn't overpay her or Willy for their trouble, and a great deal of
trouble they had been put to, certainly. Yes, the young lady was very
pleasant, but the nurse said there were rings on the mahogany table where
she had put tumblers and wine glasses. It was just as well she was gone.
The Chicago man was uppish in his ways, but not much to look at. She
supposed he had poor health, for there was nothing to him inside his
clothes.
Hedger went slowly up the stairs--never had they seemed so long, or his
legs so heavy. The upper floor was emptiness and silence. He unlocked
his room, lit the gas, and opened the windows. When he went to put his
coat in the closet, he found, hanging among his clothes, a pale,
flesh-tinted dressing gown he had liked to see her wear, with a
perfume--oh, a perfume that was still Eden Bower! He shut the door behind
him and there, in the dark, for a moment he lost his manliness. It was
when he held this garment to him that he found a letter in the pocket.
The note was written with a lead pencil, in haste: She was sorry that he
was angry, but she still didn't know just what she had done. She had
thought Mr. Ives would be useful to him; she guessed he was too proud.
She wanted awfully to see him again, but Fate came knocking at her door
after he had left her. She believed in Fate. She would never forget him,
and she knew he would become the greatest painter in the world. Now she
must pack. She hoped he wouldn't mind her leaving the dressing gown;
somehow, she could never wear it again.
After Hedger read this, standing under the gas, he went back into the
closet and knelt down before the wall; the knot hole had been plugged up
with a ball of wet paper,--the same blue note-paper on which her letter
was written.
He was hard hit. Tonight he had to bear the loneliness of a whole
lifetime. Knowing himself so well, he could hardly believe that such a
thing had ever happened to him, that such a woman had lain happy and
contented in his arms. And now it was over. He turned out the light and
sat down on his painter's stool before the big window. Caesar, on the
floor beside him, rested his head on his master's knee. We must leave
Hedger thus, sitting in his tank with his dog, looking up at the stars.
* * * * *
COMING, APHRODITE! This legend, in electric lights over the Lexington
Opera House, had long announced the return of Eden Bower to New York
after years of spectacular success in Paris. She came at last, under the
management of an American Opera Company, but bringing her own _chef
d'orchestre_.
One bright December afternoon Eden Bower was going down Fifth Avenue in
her car, on the way to her broker, in Williams Street. Her thoughts were
entirely upon stocks,--Cerro de Pasco, and how much she should buy of
it,--when she suddenly looked up and realized that she was skirting
Washington Square. She had not seen the place since she rolled out of it
in an old-fashioned four-wheeler to seek her fortune, eighteen years ago.
"_Arrêtez, Alphonse. Attendez moi_," she called, and opened the door
before he could reach it. The children who were streaking over the
asphalt on roller skates saw a lady in a long fur coat, and short,
high-heeled shoes, alight from a French car and pace slowly about the
Square, holding her muff to her chin. This spot, at least, had changed
very little, she reflected; the same trees, the same fountain, the white
arch, and over yonder, Garibaldi, drawing the sword for freedom. There,
just opposite her, was the old red brick house.
"Yes, that is the place," she was thinking. "I can smell the carpets now,
and the dog,--what was his name? That grubby bathroom at the end of the
hall, and that dreadful Hedger--still, there was something about him, you
know--" She glanced up and blinked against the sun. From somewhere in the
crowded quarter south of the Square a flock of pigeons rose, wheeling
quickly upward into the brilliant blue sky. She threw back her head,
pressed her muff closer to her chin, and watched them with a smile of
amazement and delight. So they still rose, out of all that dirt and noise
and squalor, fleet and silvery, just as they used to rise that summer
when she was twenty and went up in a balloon on Coney Island!
Alphonse opened the door and tucked her robes about her. All the way down
town her mind wandered from Cerro de Pasco, and she kept smiling and
looking up at the sky.
When she had finished her business with the broker, she asked him to look
in the telephone book for the address of M. Gaston Jules, the picture
dealer, and slipped the paper on which he wrote it into her glove. It was
five o'clock when she reached the French Galleries, as they were called.
On entering she gave the attendant her card, asking him to take it to M.
Jules. The dealer appeared very promptly and begged her to come into his
private office, where he pushed a great chair toward his desk for her and
signalled his secretary to leave the room.
"How good your lighting is in here," she observed, glancing about. "I met
you at Simon's studio, didn't I? Oh, no! I never forget anybody who
interests me." She threw her muff on his writing table and sank into the
deep chair. "I have come to you for some information that's not in my
line. Do you know anything about an American painter named Hedger?"
He took the seat opposite her. "Don Hedger? But, certainly! There are
some very interesting things of his in an exhibition at V----'s. If you
would care to--"
She held up her hand. "No, no. I've no time to go to exhibitions. Is he a
man of any importance?"
"Certainly. He is one of the first men among the moderns. That is to say,
among the very moderns. He is always coming up with something different.
He often exhibits in Paris, you must have seen--"
"No, I tell you I don't go to exhibitions. Has he had great success? That
is what I want to know."
M. Jules pulled at his short grey moustache. "But, Madame, there are many
kinds of success," he began cautiously.
Madame gave a dry laugh. "Yes, so he used to say. We once quarrelled on
that issue. And how would you define his particular kind?"
M. Jules grew thoughtful. "He is a great name with all the young men, and
he is decidedly an influence in art. But one can't definitely place a man
who is original, erratic, and who is changing all the time."
She cut him short. "Is he much talked about at home? In Paris, I mean?
Thanks. That's all I want to know." She rose and began buttoning her
coat. "One doesn't like to have been an utter fool, even at twenty."
"_Mais, non_!" M. Jules handed her her muff with a quick, sympathetic
glance. He followed her out through the carpeted show-room, now closed to
the public and draped in cheesecloth, and put her into her car with words
appreciative of the honour she had done him in calling.
Leaning back in the cushions, Eden Bower closed her eyes, and her face,
as the street lamps flashed their ugly orange light upon it, became
hard and settled, like a plaster cast; so a sail, that has been filled by
a strong breeze, behaves when the wind suddenly dies. Tomorrow night the
wind would blow again, and this mask would be the golden face of
Aphrodite. But a "big" career takes its toll, even with the best of luck.