AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND.
Merchant of Venice; v.--2.
"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the
background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes
differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you'd see."
"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage,"
Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not
logical."
"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still
say yes."
It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come
to Fenton's studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have
that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not
choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife.
"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature's protest against
civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on
her own ground, am I not?"
"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote
Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what
is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be
honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must
be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever
acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have."
"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too
self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to
win society? Society is ready enough to take them in."
"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself,
'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage
seems already to have sucked the life out of you."
"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot
make me angry."
"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is
your fault."
"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently,
"oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself."
He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the
building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen.
He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of
the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite.
"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence.
"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why
you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well
connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me,
Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling
the Egyptians."
"But that was in departing from their country."
"We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only
disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect
you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself.
You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I
am able."
She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives
seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his
marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her
impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing.
"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not
her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?"
"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look
coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?"
"You are speaking of your wife!"
"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or
of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long
ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do
precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime?
Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of
being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of
whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example."
"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple
question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of
hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush
mark of your canvas there!"
For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat
upright in his cushions and faced her.
"Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You
cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I
asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with
the Philistines!"
He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off
some disgusting touch.
"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously,
"far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I
prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever
else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would
like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes
me beautifully."
He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait
contemptuously.
"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming
thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me.
The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving
them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't
enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of
standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by
enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art,
she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while
they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help
her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with
the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not
wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most
part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial
good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you
choose."
He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose
as he finished.
"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own
judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have
ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race."
"But I acknowledge my faults."
"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment
is not reparation, though many try to make it so."
She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand
upon the latch.
"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet
again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can."
"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at
him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you."
"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil.
I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is
true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as
through her sincerity."
"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen.
"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed
my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word 'Pardon.'"
"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than
either would be a blank! Let me pass!"