AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT.
Henry VIII.; i.--3.
"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur,
that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to
at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the
unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the
wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw
it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago."
"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never
be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city;
and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far
off that I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is
imminent at all."
"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a
pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is
advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom."
"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it
altogether until it comes."
"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll
find when the day of doom swoops down on you."
They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery
of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe
by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a
little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the
errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being
accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this
might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before their
marriage.
She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet
representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton
sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly,
then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her.
"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he
remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an
irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out
the catch-penny hand of a beggar."
"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that
is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real goddess has her
temples here."
"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the
way you mean."
A shadow passed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him.
"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly
about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at
first, but you--"
"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the
conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma
petite_. Don't mind it."
"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter
talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--"
She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because
her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might
offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly
avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new
channel.
"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are
only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of
questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised
Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here
twice that time already."
He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and
down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her
face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real
importance to her.
"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they
descended the wide staircase.
She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way
collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a
somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed
deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm,
impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with
lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was
placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more
than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the
shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless
eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still
keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer.
Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have
stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a
way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed.
"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How
much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give
us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she
would but condescend to speak."
"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling.
"But Pasht belies her sex by not being a communicative party," was her
companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a
characteristic of the gods."
"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even
for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your
cat-headed goddess?"
"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she
has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the
goddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort
of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose."
"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith
said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag
from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty.
"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the
tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of
minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for
this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the
figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but
may come to blows any time."
He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the
conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr.
Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a
woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the
statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was
waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking:
"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--"
"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he
were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further
from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name
by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month
in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no
organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently
puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply.
"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and
surreptitiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your sex. I'll
come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by."
He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his
own way.