HOW CHANCES MOCK.
II Henry IV.; iii.--I.
A man often creates his own strongest temptations by dwelling upon
possibilities of evil; and it is equally true that nothing else renders
a man so likely to break moral laws as the consciousness of having
broken them already. The experience of Arthur Fenton was in these days
affording a melancholy illustration of both of these propositions. The
humiliating inner consciousness of having violated all the principles
of honor of his fealty to which he had been secretly proud begot in him
an unreasonable and unreasoning impulse still further to transgress.
When arraigned by his inner self for his betrayal of Hubbard, it was
his instinct to defend himself by showing his superiority to all moral
canons whatever. He felt a certain desperate inclination to trample all
principles underfoot, as if by so doing he could destroy the standards
by which he was being tried.
Fenton was not of a mental fibre sufficiently robust to make this
impulse likely to result in any violent outbreak, and, indeed, but for
circumstances it would doubtless have vapored itself away in words and
vagrant fancies. He had once remarked, embodying a truth in one of his
frequent whimsically perverse statements, that the worst thing which
could be said of him was that he was incapable of a great crime, and
only the constant pressure of an annoyance, such as the threats of
Irons in regard to Ninitta, or the presence of an equally constant
temptation, such as that to which he was now succumbing in allowing his
relations with Mrs. Herman to become more and more intimate, would have
brought him to any marked transgression.
In a nature such as that of Fenton there is, with the exception of
vanity and the instinct of self-preservation, no trait stronger than
curiosity. The artist was devoured by an eager, intellectual greed to
know all things, to experience all sensations, to taste all savors of
life. He made no distinction between good and bad; his zeal for
knowledge was too keen to allow of his being deterred by the line
ordinarily drawn between pain and pleasure. His affections, his
passions, his morals were all subordinate to this burning curiosity,
and only his instinct of self-preservation subtly making itself felt in
the guise of expediency, and his vanity prettily disguised as taste,
held the thirst for knowledge in check.
It was by far more the desire to learn whether he could bend Ninitta to
his will than it was passion which carried Fenton forward in the
dangerous path upon which he was now well advanced; and it was perhaps
more than either a half-unconscious eagerness to taste a new
experience. Even the double wickedness of betraying the wife of a
friend and of enticing a woman to her fall had for Fenton, in his
present mood, an unholy fascination. He was too self-analytical to
deceive himself into a supposition that he was in love with Ninitta,
and even his passion was so much under the dominion of his head that he
could have blown it out like a rushlight, had he really desired to be
done with it. He looked at himself with mingled approbation, amusement,
and horror, as he might have regarded a favorite and skilful actor in a
vicious _role_; and the man whose mind is to him merely an
amphitheatre, where games are played for his amusement, is always
dangerous.
As for Ninitta, the processes of her mind were probably quite as
complex as those of his, although they appeared more simple, in virtue
of their being more remote. She had, in the first place, a curious
jealousy of her husband because of his passionate fondness for Nino,
and a dull resentment at the secret conviction that the father had the
gifts and powers which were sure to win more love than the child would
bestow upon her. She could better bear the thought that the boy should
die, than that he should live to love anybody more than he loved her.
It was also true that Grant Herman, large-hearted and generous as he
was, did not know how to make his wife happy. He was patient and
chivalrous and tender; but he was hardly able to go to her level, and
as she could not come to his, the pair had little in common. He felt
that somehow this must be his fault; he told himself that, as the
larger nature, it should be his place to make concessions, to master
the situation, and to secure Ninitta's happiness, whatever came to him.
He had even come to feel so much tenderness toward the mother of his
child, the woman in whose behalf he had made the great sacrifice of his
life, that a pale but steadfast glow of affection shone always in his
heart for his wife. But his patience, his delicacy, his steadfastness
counted for little with Ninitta. She had been separated from him for
long years of betrothal, during which he had developed and changed
utterly. She had clung to her love and faith, but her love and faith
were given to an ardent youth glowing with a passion of which it was
hardly possible to rekindle the faint embers in the bosom of the man
she married. Even Ninitta, little given to analysis, could not fail to
recognize that her husband was a very different being from the lover
she had known ten years before. One fervid blaze of the old love would
have appealed more strongly to her peasant soul than all the patience
and tender forbearance of years.
Indeed, it is doubtful whether Ninitta might not have been better and
happier had Herman been less kind. Had he made a slave of her, she
would have accepted her lot as uncomplainingly as the women of her race
had acquiesced in such a fate for stolid generations. She could have
understood that. As it was, she felt always the strain of being tried
by standards which she did not and could not comprehend; the misery of
being in a place for which she was unfitted and which she could not
fill, and the fact that no definite demands were made upon her
increased her trouble by the double stress of putting her upon her own
responsibility, and of leaving her ignorant in what her failures lay.
There was, too, who knows what trace of heredity in the readiness with
which Ninitta tacitly adopted the idea that infidelity to a husband was
rather a matter of discretion and secrecy; whereas faithfulness to her
lover had been a point of the most rigorous honor. And Ninitta found
Arthur Fenton's silken sympathy so insinuating, so soothing; the
tempter, merely from his marvellous adaptability and faultless tact, so
satisfied her womanly craving, and fostered her vanity; she was so
completely made to feel that she was understood; she was tempted with a
cunning the more infernal because Fenton kept himself always up to the
level of sincerity by never admitting to himself that he intended any
evil, that it was small wonder that the time came when her ardent
Italian nature was so kindled that she became involuntarily the tempter
in her turn.
It was one of the singular features of Fenton's present attitude that
even he, with all his clear-sightedness, failed to see the error of
supposing that his departure from the paths of rectitude was nothing
but a temporary episode. He fully expected to take up again his former
attitude toward life when he would have scorned such a contemptible
action as the betrayal of Hubbard, or the more trifling, but perhaps
even more humiliating act of smuggling Snaffle into the club that he
might win his money. He even had a certain vague feeling that if he had
any viciousness to get through he must do it at once, lest the
resumption of his former respectability should deprive him of the
opportunity. He maintained before the world, indeed, a perfect
propriety of deportment, partly from the force of habit and partly from
the instinctive cunning which always tried to preserve for him the
means of retreat; but so complete was his abandonment, for the time
being, to the enjoyment of evil, that he was constantly assailed with
the temptation to make some public demonstration of his state of
feeling. He secretly longed to shock people with blasphemous or
imprudent expressions; to outrage all honor by stealing his host's
spoons when he dined out; his fancy rioted in whimsical evil of which,
of course, he gave no outward sign.
He had a scene with Alfred Irons, one morning, at his studio. Irons
came in with a look on his face which secretly enraged the artist, who
was almost rude in the coldness of his greeting, although the caller
only grinned at this evidence of his host's irritation.
"Well, Fenton," he said, with bluff abruptness, "I suppose it is time
for us to square accounts, isn't it?"
"I was not aware that we had any accounts to square," the other
returned, with his most icy manner.
Irons laughed, and looked about the studio.
"That's your new picture, I suppose" he observed, settling himself back
in his chair, with the determined mien of a man who recognizes the fact
that he has a battle to fight, but is perfectly willing to join the
fray.
The significance of his air, as he nodded toward the big canvas on the
easel, so plainly brought up the unfortunate hold which the _Fatima_
had given Irons over the artist, that Fenton flushed in spite of
himself.
"It is a picture," he returned; "and it is unfinished."
Irons chuckled.
"Very well," he said. "We won't fence. I thought you might be
interested to know that we've got our railroad business into first-rate
shape; and there's no doubt that the Wachusett route will carry the
day. I tell you we had a hot time in the Senate yesterday," he went on,
warming with the excitement of his subject. "We made a pretty stiff
fight in the Railroad Committee to get them to report 'not expedient'
on the Feltonville petition. I tell you Staggchase fought like a bull
tiger at the hearing, and those fellows must have put in a pot of
money. But we beat 'em. Then the fight came to get the report accepted
in the Senate. Everybody said that Tom Greenfield would settle the
thing with a big broadside in favor of his own town; and I'll own that
I was scared blue myself. But we haven't been cooking Tom Greenfield
all this time for nothing. I don't mind telling you that your help in
the matter was of the greatest value; and when Greenfield got up in the
Senate yesterday, and put in his best licks for the Wachusett route,
you'd have thought they'd been struck by a cyclone. We got a vote to
sustain that report that buries the Feltonville project out of sight;
and now there's no doubt that the Railroad Commissioners will give us
our certificate without any more trouble."
During this rather long and not wholly coherent speech, Fenton sat with
his eyes coldly fixed upon his visitor, without giving the slightest
sign of interest.
"I am glad," he said, in a manner as distant as he could make it, "that
your business is likely to succeed to your mind."
"Oh, it must succeed. The Commissioners only suspended operations till
the Legislature disposed of the question of special legislation. Now
they're all ready to give us what we want."
"And all this," Fenton said, "is of what interest to me?"
Irons flushed angrily.
"You were good enough," he returned, drawing his lips down savagely,
"to give us a bit of information which we found of value. Very likely
we might have hit upon it somewhere else, but that's no matter, as long
as we did get it through you. We've no inclination to shirk our debt.
Now what's your price?"
Fenton rose from his chair, with an impulsive movement; then he
controlled himself and sat down again. He looked at his visitor with
eyes of fire.
"I am not aware," he returned, "that I have ever been in the market, so
that I have not been obliged to consider that question."
Alfred Irons was silent for a moment. He felt somewhat as if he had
received a dash of ice-water in the face. He wrinkled up his narrow
eyes and studied the man before him. He could not understand what the
other was driving at. He was little likely to be able to follow the
subtile changes of Fenton's imaginative mind, and he could at present
see no explanation of the way in which his advances were met, except
the theory that the artist was fencing to insure a larger reward for
his treachery than might be given him if he accepted the first offer in
silence.
Fenton, on his part, was so filled with rage that it was with
difficulty that he restrained himself. The length to which his intimacy
with Ninitta had now gone, however, made it absolutely necessary that
he should avoid a quarrel in which her name might be brought up; and he
had, moreover, put himself into the hands of Irons, by giving him the
information in regard to the plans for Feltonville.
"Oh, well," Irons said at length, rising with the air of one who cannot
waste his time puzzling over trifles; "have it your own way. It's only
a matter of words."
He took out his pocket-book, and with deliberation turned over the
papers it contained. He selected one, read it carefully, and then held
it out to Fenton.
"Our manufacturing corporation is practically on its legs now," he
said, "and the stock will be issued at once. That entitles you to ten
shares. They will be issued at sixty, and ought to go to par by fall.
Indeed, in a year's time, we'll make them worth double the buying
price, or I am mistaken."
Fenton looked at the paper as if he were reading it, but its letters
swam before his eyes. He needed money sorely, and had this gift come in
a shape more readily convertible into cash, he might have found it
impossible to resist it. As it was, he allowed himself to be fiercely
angry. He was furious, but he was consciously so. He raised his eyes,
flashing and distended, and fixed them upon the mean, hateful face
before him. He paused an instant to let his gaze have its effect.
"And I understand," he said, with a slow, careful enunciation, "that in
consideration of the service I have done you, you give me your promise
never to mention the fact that you saw a lady in my studio."
"Certainly," Irons returned.
Fenton's look made him uncomfortable. The artist was reasserting the
old superiority over him which the visitor had found so irritating, and
it was Iron's instinct to meet this by an air of bluster.
"Very well," Arthur said. "We may then consider what you are pleased to
call our account as closed."
He walked forward deliberately and laid the paper he held on the heap
of glowing coals in the grate. It curled and shrivelled, and before
Irons could even compress his thick lips to whistle, nothing remained
of the document but a quivering film.
"Well," Irons commented, "you are a damned fool; but then that's your
own business."
The artist bowed gravely.
"Naturally," he replied.
He stood waiting as if he expected his caller to go, and, despite
himself, Irons felt that he was being bowed out of the studio. He took
his leave awkwardly, feeling that he had somehow been beaten with
trumps in his hand, and hating Fenton ten times more heartily than ever.
"The confounded snob!" he muttered under his breath, as he went down
the stairs of Studio Building. "He puts on damned high-headed airs; but
I'm not done with him yet."
And Fenton meanwhile stood looking at that thin fluttering film on the
red coals with despair in his heart. He had taken the money which he
imperatively needed to pay notes soon due, and invested in Princeton
Platinum, with which the obliging Erastus Snaffle had supplied him out
of pure generosity, if one could credit the seller's statements; and he
had been secretly depending for relief upon this very gift from Irons
which he had destroyed. His affairs were every day becoming more
inextricably involved, and Fenton, it has already been said, with all
his cleverness, had no skill as a financier.
"Well," he commented to himself, shrugging his shoulders, "that is the
end of that; but I did make good play."
The satisfaction of having well acted his part, and of having got the
better of Irons, did much toward restoring the artist's naturally
buoyant spirits. He fell to reckoning his resources, and by dint of
introducing into the account several pleasing but most improbable
possibilities, he succeeded in building up between himself and ruin a
fanciful barrier which for the moment satisfied him; and beyond the
moment he refused to look.