HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH.
Two Gentlemen of Verona; iv.--2.
Helen Greyson was at work in her studio modelling the hand of a statue.
The pretty hand of Melissa Blake lay before her, so near that Milly's
face came close to her own as she sat beside the modelling stand. It
was one of those anomalies of which nature is fond the world over, and
in which she displays nowhere more whimsical wilfulness than in New
England, that Melissa, born of a race of plain country farmers, should
have the hand of a princess. It was slender and beautiful, with
exquisite taper fingers which had not as yet been spoiled by hard work,
although were the present generation of New England maidens called upon
to labor as vigorously as did their grandmothers the girl's hands would
hardly have retained their comeliness so long.
Helen was working silently, absorbed in thought, and going on with her
modelling mechanically. She was pondering the old question, whether she
had done well in coming back to America, or whether she should have
still kept the ocean between herself and Grant Herman. While she was in
Europe, the longing to see him, to feel that he was near, to breathe
the same air, had become ever more strenuous, until at last it could
not be resisted. The sense of safety she had while so far away
prevented her from appreciating that she was returning to the same
danger from which she had fled. She told herself that time had so
softened and changed her feelings, that Herman with wife and son was so
different from the lonely man who had sought her love, and whom she had
bravely renounced from a stern sense of duty, whether wise or not, that
there could be no danger. She was a woman, and she had kept temptation
at a distance until the nerve of resistance was worn out; then she had
come home.
Now she asked herself what she had gained. She had renounced the
passive acquiescence which she had won by years of hard struggle, and
she had in exchange only a fierce unrest which was well-nigh
unendurable. To be near Herman and yet to be as far removed from him as
if the universe were between was a torture such as she had not dreamed
of. All the old love awoke, and something of the old conviction which
had made renunciation possible had failed her with time.
Nothing is more common than for the conscience half unconsciously to
assume that a heroic self-sacrifice has been of so great efficacy that
even the conditions which made it right are thereby altered. Without
realizing it, Helen's mental attitude was that in giving up Herman's
love and bringing about his marriage to Ninitta that his honor might be
unstained, she had accomplished a self-denial so tremendous that even
the need of making it was thereby destroyed. The idea was paradoxical,
but that a proposition is paradoxical is no obstacle to its being held
firmly by the feminine mind.
But by coming home Helen had also been put in a position where she
could not avoid seeing something of Herman's married life, and it was
at once impossible for her to help perceiving that it was a failure, or
to evade the conclusion that if it were a failure she was to blame for
the part she had taken in bringing it about. It is always dangerous to
judge of actions by their results, since by so doing one refers them to
the code of expediency rather than to that of ethics. Helen was not
prepared to pronounce her old decision wrong; but the feeling that her
renunciation had been vain forced itself more and more strongly upon
her.
She was losing sight of her conviction that the need of doing what one
felt to be right was in itself so imperative that no course of action
could be wrong which was based upon this principle. The truth is that
all mortals, and perhaps women especially, feel that a virtuous
resolution, a noble self-denial, must bring with it a spiritual
uplifting which will render it possible to hold to it. The hour of
self-conquest is one of inner exaltation which is so vivid that it is
impossible to realize that it can be otherwise than perpetual; a life
of self-conquest is a continuous struggle against the double doubt
which is the ghost of the short-lived exaltation that promised to be
immortal.
From her reverie, Helen was aroused by a question of Melissa which
almost seemed as if suggested by thought transference.
"Do you know," Melissa asked, "why the commission was not given to Mr.
Herman?"
"The commission?" Helen repeated, so startled by the mention of the
name which had been in her mind that for the moment she did not
comprehend the question.
"Why, for the _America_," returned Melissa. "I thought you knew Mr.
Herman, and Orin said that you had withdrawn."
Helen looked at her with a puzzled air.
"I did withdraw," she said, "but I did not know the matter had been
decided. Who is Orin? Orin Stanton?"
"Yes, he is to make the statue."
"Did he tell you so?"
"Yes, he thinks I helped him by speaking to Mrs. Fenton; but she said
Mr. Calvin already wanted Orin, so it made no difference."
"How long has it been decided?" asked Helen.
"He showed me the letter from Mr. Calvin day before yesterday. The
committee hadn't met, but Mr. Irons had promised his vote, and he and
Mr. Calvin make a majority. Orin had been afraid Mr. Irons would vote
for Mr. Herman, and I did not know but what you could tell. We are all
so much interested in the statue."
Helen laid down her tools with an air of sudden determination.
"Why are you?" she asked, rather absently. "When Mrs. Fenton told me
she had asked you to let me model your hands, she didn't mention your
being interested in my art."
"Oh, I don't know anything about it," returned the other, with the
utmost frankness, "only that Orin's a sculptor."
Helen smiled at the girl's _naivete_.
"And am I to congratulate you on Orin's success?"
Melissa blushed.
"Of course I am pleased," she answered, "especially for John's sake."
"And John?" Helen pursued, finishing her preparations for leaving her
work.
"John is Orin's half-brother," Milly replied, in a voice and with a
manner which made it unnecessary for Mrs. Greyson to question farther.
"I shall not work any more this morning," she said. "I have to go out."
She dressed herself for the street, and, for the first time in six
years, took the well-remembered way toward Herman's studio down among
the warehouses and wharves. She was indignant at the action of the
committee, of which she felt that Herman should be told. As, however,
she neared the place, old associations and feelings made her heart beat
quickly. When she put aside the great Oran rug and entered the studio,
she felt a choking sensation in her throat, and the tears sprang to her
eyes. She remembered so vividly the day when she had stood in this very
spot and parted from her lover, that it almost seemed to her for the
moment as if she had come to enact that scene again.
The place was more bare than of old. The pictures from the walls and
many of the ornaments had been removed to the house which Herman had
fitted up on his marriage with Ninitta; but in his usual place stood
the sculptor, at work by his modelling stand, and over the rail of the
gallery above, toward which her eyes instinctively turned as the old
memories wakened, she saw the sculptured edge of a marble Grecian
altar. The recollections were too poignant, and she started forward
quickly, as if to escape an actual presence.
The studio was so large that Herman had fallen into the way of saving
himself the trouble of answering the bell by putting up the sign "Come
in" upon the door, and he was not aware of Helen's presence until he
saw her standing with her hand upon the portiere, as he had seen her
six years before when she had renounced him, placing his honor before
their love. With an exclamation that was almost a cry, he dropped his
modelling tool and started forward to meet her.
"Helen!" he cried, and the intensity of his feelings made it impossible
for him to say more.
Yet, however strong the emotions which were aroused by this
meeting,--and for both of them the moment was one of keenest
feeling,--they were schooled to self-control, and after that first
exclamation the sculptor was outwardly calm as he went to greet his
visitor. Even for those who are not guided by principle, self-restraint
comes as the result of habit, and none of us in this age of the world
assert the right of emotion to vent itself in utterance. The
Philoctetes of Sophocles might shriek to high heaven, and Mars vent the
anguish of his wounds in cries and sobs, but we have changed all that.
Even the muse of tragedy is self-possessed in modern days; good
breeding has conquered even the fierce impulse of passion to find
outlet in words.
Both Herman and Helen were alive to the danger of the situation, and
their meeting was one of perfect outward calm.
"Good morning," she said, "it seemed so natural to walk in, that I
should almost have done it if your card hadn't been on the door."
She held out her hand as she spoke.
"I cannot shake hands," he said, "I am at work, you see."
She answered by a little conventional laugh which might mean anything.
Both of them hesitated a moment, their real feeling being too deep for
it to be easy quickly to call to mind conventionalities of talk. Then
the sculptor turned to lead the way up the studio, waving his hand as
he did so toward the place where he had been working.
"You couldn't have come more opportunely," remarked he. "You are just
in time to criticise my model for _America_. I was just looking it over
for the last touches."
"It was that I came to talk about," Helen returned, moving forward
toward the modelling stand on which was a figure in clay. "I have just
learned that the commission has already been awarded; and I thought you
ought to know how the committee is acting."
"I do know," he answered. "Mr. Hubbard came and told me, although the
committee meant to keep the decision quiet until after the models were
in."
"But you are finishing yours."
"Yes, I declined to enter a competition and was hired to make a model.
Of course I finish that, whatever the decision of the committee. Mr.
Hubbard told me because he had before assured me of his support, and he
wished to avoid even the suspicion of double dealing."
"The action of the committee is outrageous!" Helen protested,
indignantly. "They might as well put up a tobacconist's sign as the
thing Orin Stanton will make. It shows that you are right in refusing
to enter a competition, since they have decided without even seeing the
models they asked for."
"Yes," was Herman's reply. He paused a moment, and added, "Was that the
reason you withdrew?"
Helen flushed slightly, and turned her face aside.
"It hardly seemed worth while," she began; but he interrupted her.
"I would not have gone in," he said, "even as I did, if I had known
there was a chance of your competing."
She turned toward him, and her eyes unconsciously said what she had
been careful not to put into words.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, with sudden comprehension. "You knew I was in it
and that is why you withdrew."
"Well," she said, trying to laugh lightly, "it would not have been
modest for me to compete against my master."
She moved away as she spoke. She had a tingling sense of his nearness,
a passionate yearning to turn toward him and to break down all barriers
which made her afraid. She felt that she had been rash in coming to the
studio, and had overestimated her own strength. She glanced around
quickly, as if in search of something which would help to bring the
conversation to conventional levels; but her eye fell upon a
terra-cotta figure which sent the blood surging into her head so
fiercely that a rushing sound seemed to fill her ears. It was the nude
figure of a soldier lying dead upon a trampled mound, with broken
poppies about him, while across the pedestal ran the inscription,--
"I strew these opiate flowers
Round thy restless pillow."
It was the figure beside the clay model of which, yet wet from his
hand, the sculptor had told her, that day long ago, of her husband's
death. In the years since, she had believed herself to have worn her
love into friendship, to have beaten her passion into affection; but
every woman, even the most clear-headed, deceives herself in matters of
the heart, and now Helen knew what pitiful self-deception her belief
had been.
Over and over and over again has it been noted how great a part in
human life and action is played by trifles, and despite this constant
reiteration the fact remains both true and unappreciated. And yet it
is, after all, more exact to consider that the thing is simply our
habit of noticing the obvious trifles rather than the underlying
causes, as it is the straws on the surface of the current that catch
our eye rather than the black flood which sweeps them along. It was the
chance sight of the figure of the dead soldier which now broke down
Helen's self-control, but the true explanation of her outburst lay in
long pent up and well-nigh resistless emotions.
She turned toward her companion with a passionate gesture.
"It is no use," she broke forth, "I did wrong to come home. I should
have kept the ocean between us. I must go back."
Herman grasped the edge of the modelling stand strongly.
"Helen," he said, in a voice of intensest feeling; "We may as well face
the truth. We were wrong six years ago."
"Stop!" she interrupted piteously, putting up her hand. "You must not
say it. Don't tell me that all this misery has been for nothing, and
that we have sacrificed our lives to an error. And, besides," she went
on, as he regarded her without speaking, "however it was then, surely
now Ninitta has claims on you which cannot be gainsaid."
"Yes," he said bitterly, "and of whose making?"
She looked at him, pale as death, and with all the anguish of years of
passionate sorrow in her eyes. He faltered before the reproach of her
glance, but he would not yield. The disappointment of his married life,
his sorrow in the years of separation, the selfish masculine instinct
which makes all suffering seem injustice, asserted themselves now. The
effect of the fact that he was forbidden to love this woman was to make
him half consciously feel as if he had now the right to consider only
himself. He almost seemed absolved from any claims for pity which she
might once have had upon him. Even the noblest of men, except the two
or three in the history of the race who have shown themselves to be
possessed of a certain divine effeminacy, instinctively feel that a
disappointment in passion is an absolution from moral obligation.
"See," he said, with a force that was almost brutal; "we loved each
other and we have made that love simply a means of torture. My God!
Helen, the besotted idiots that fling themselves under the wheels of
Juggernaut are no more mad than we were."
She hurried to him and clasped both her hands upon his arm.
"Stop!" she begged, her voice broken with sobs, "for pity's sake, stop!
It is all true. I have said it to myself a hundred times; but I will
not believe it. Don't you see," she went on, the tears on her cheek,
"that to say this is to give up everything, that if there is no truth
and no right, there is nothing for which we can respect each other, and
our love has no dignity, no quality we should be willing to name."
He looked at her with fierce, unrelenting eyes.
"Ah," he retorted cruelly, "my love is too strong for me to argue about
it."
She loosed her hold upon his arm and stepped backward a little,
regarding him despairingly. She did not mind the taunt, but the moral
fibre of her nature always responded to opposition. She broke out
excitedly into irrelevant inconsistency.
"It is right," she cried. "We were right six years ago, and you shall
not break my ideal now. I must respect you, Grant. Out of the wreck of
my life I will save that, that I can honor where I love."
She stopped to choke back the sobs which shook her voice, and to wipe
away the tears which blinded her. The sculptor stood immovable; but his
face was softened and full of yearning.
"And, oh," Helen said, the memory of sorrowful years surging upon her,
"you would not try to shake my conviction if you realized how
absolutely it has been my only support. It is so bitter to doubt
whether the thing that wrings the heart is really right after all."
Herman made a sudden movement as if he would start forward, then he
restrained himself.
"Forgive me," he said, in a strangely softened voice. "You have
forgiven me for being cruel before. To have done a thing because you
believe it is right is of more consequence than anything else can be.
The truth is in the heart, not the thing."
She tried to smile. She felt as if she were acting again an old scene,
the trick of taking refuge from too dangerous personal feeling in the
expression of general truths carrying her back to the time when the
expedient had served them both before.
"But people who have faith," she said, "who believe creeds and
doctrines, can have little conception how much harder it is for us than
for them to do what we think is the right."
He did not answer her, and a moment they stood in silence with downcast
looks. Then she moved slowly down the great studio toward the door, and
he followed by her side.
As she put her hand upon the Oran rug to lift it, she raised her eyes
and met his glance. The blood rushed into their faces. They remembered
their parting embrace and the burning kisses of long ago.
"Good-by," she said, and even before he could answer her she had gone
out swiftly.