People said that Joe Hayward's pictures "lacked something." Even
the critics, who know everything, were at a loss to find where the
deficiency might be. Hayward, himself, worked hard studying the
masters, patiently correcting faults in colour and perspective, and
succeeding after a fashion. But he felt that art, in its highest and
best sense, was utterly beyond him; there was a haunting elusive
something which was continually beyond his reach.
Occasionally, when he sold a picture, he would give "a time" to a
dozen artist chums from studios near by, as they did, whenever fortune
favoured them; after this he would paint again, on and on, with a
really tremendous perseverance.
At length, he obtained permission to make an exhibition of his work
in a single room at the Art Gallery. The pictures were only ten in
number, and some of them were small, but they represented a year's
hard work. When he superintended the hanging, on Saturday morning, he
was more nearly happy than he had ever been in his life. The placard on
the door, "The Hayward Exhibition will open Monday," filled him with
pleasure. It was not a conceited feeling of importance, but rather a
happy consciousness that he had done his best.
At last he was suited with the arrangement. The men went out with the
ladder and wire, and he stood in the centre of the room, contemplating
the result. The landscape in the corner might be a little out of
drawing, he thought, but the general public would not notice that.
And the woman in white, beside it, which he had christened _Purity_
certainly showed to good advantage. He remembered very well the day
he had put the finishing touches upon it after the night of revelry
in which he had helped Jennings and a dozen other fellows from
neighbouring studios to celebrate the sale of Jennings' _Study of a
Head_, and how he had thought, at the time, that he, who spent such
nights, had no business to paint a figure like this of _Purity_.
As he turned to leave the room, he saw a grey gowned young woman, who
evidently did not know that the pictures were not as yet upon public
view. She passed him as she came in, with a rustle of silken skirts and
a cooling odour of violets. Seeing the key of the room in his hand, she
turned to him and said: "Pardon me, but can you tell me whose pictures
these are?"
"These are Hayward's," he replied.
"Hayward," she repeated after him, as if the name were wholly new to
her.
"Hayward is a young artist and of purely local reputation," he
explained. "This is his first public exhibition."
She surveyed the collection without any very strong show of pleasure,
until he remarked, "You don't seem to think much of his beginning."
She was prompt in her answer: "No, I do not, they seem to lack
something."
He sighed inwardly. That old, old, "something." Hayward's pictures all
lacked "something" as everybody said of them; but what that something
was, his intimates, his fellow artists, were not the kind to know.
"What is it, do you think?" he asked.
"I don't know," she replied slowly. "If one knew the man, one might be
able to tell."
For the first time she looked him full in the face. He saw nothing but
her eyes, clear and honest, reading him through and through.
"Yes," he answered, "if you knew the man, I think you could tell."
"I'm not at all sure," she laughed, "It's only a fancy of mine."
Drawing a watch from her belt, she looked surprised and turned away. He
listened until the silken rustle had completely ceased. Then he, too,
went out and on the stair he found a fine handkerchief edged with lace,
delicately scented with violet, and minutely marked in the corner:
"Constance Grey."
On Sunday night, the studio building where Hayward and others painted
glowed with light. The morrow's opening of "The Hayward Exhibition" was
being celebrated with "a time" at the expense of the artist. Glasses
clinked, and the air was heavy with smoke, two women from a vaudeville
theatre, near by made merry upon an impromptu stage.
Everybody seemed to be happy except Hayward. The owner of the
handkerchief was in his mind. He felt that those eyes of hers grey,
deep, and tender, though they were, might blaze with anger at a scene
like this. The handkerchief had no place in such an atmosphere. He went
over to his book case, and put it between the leaves of his Tennyson,
smiling as he caught the words on the opposite page:
"A man had given all other bliss
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips."
Her handkerchief would feel more at home there, he thought, though as
he closed the book, he could not help wondering what she would say if
she looked into the room.
A quick eye had followed his movement, and soon afterward its
owner, Jennings, took occasion to examine the volume. He waved the
handkerchief aloft triumphantly. "Heigho, fellows! Hayward's got a
new mark for his clothes! Look here--'Constance Grey'!" Hayward was
shaken with mingled shame and anger that he could not explain, even
to himself. The words and tone with which he commanded his friend to
put the little thing back where he had found it were as hot as they
were foolish. For a moment the two men faced each other; then Jennings
apologised, and afterward Hayward murmured a sort of apology also.
In sparkling champagne they drank to good fellowship again. But the
incident was not without a certain subtle effect upon the celebration,
and at one o'clock Hayward sat alone with his face buried in his hands,
a dainty handkerchief spread out before him, and beside it was the
rapidly sketched outline of a face which he had just completed.
He knew now why the action of Jennings had made him so furious. The
shaft of light from a woman's eyes, which once strikes deep into the
soul of every man, had at last come home to him.
The "opening" was auspicious. Wealth and art alike were well
represented. One of his most important pictures was marked "sold"
before the evening was over, and everybody congratulated the artist
upon his good fortune. In praise of his art, however, very little
was said that did not somehow carry in it, perhaps silently, the old
drawback--the implication that something was lacking; still exultation
ran rife in his veins. There were throngs of beautiful women there and
he was the centre of it all.
Toward the end of the evening, a lady who had once sat for a portrait
came up to him. She was one of a little group who came in late after a
theatre party, but she approached with the air of an old friend.
"Mr. Hayward," she said, "I want you to know my niece."
He followed her into the next room where a young lady sat upon a divan.
Her grey eyes were lifted to his face, and then suddenly lowered in
confusion.
"Mr. Hayward," she said, "I am so ashamed!" And when he tried to
reassure her, she answered: "Let's not talk about it--it's too
humiliating!"
So they spoke of other things. He learned that she had come from a
distant city to visit relatives, and the aunt invited him to call upon
them. Friday afternoon came at last, when Miss Grey and her aunt were
at home. Other Fridays followed, and other days which served as well as
Fridays. It was seldom that the girl looked him in the face; but when
she did so, he felt himself confessed before her--a man with no right
to touch even the hem of her garment, yet honouring her with every
fibre of his being.
They were much together and Constance took a frank enjoyment in his
friendship. He made every effort to please her, and one day they went
into the country.
Constance was almost childishly happy, but the seeming perfection of
her happiness distressed him when he learned that in a very few days
she was to sail for Europe, pass the summer and autumn in travel, and
spend the winter in Paris.
At length they sat down under a gnarled oak tree and watched the light
upon the river and in the sky. After an embarrassing silence Hayward
spoke:
"I think you know the man now,--will you tell me what you think of his
pictures?"
She hesitated. "I do not know the man well enough to say, but I will
give you my art creed, and let you judge for yourself. I believe that
a man's art is neither more nor less than the expression of himself,
and that, in order to obtain an exalted expression, his first business
is with himself. Wrong living blunts, and eventually destroys, the
fundamental sense of right and wrong without which a noble art is
impossible. When a man's art is true, it is because he himself is true.
The true artist must be a man first, and an artist afterward."
Hayward took her admonition with the meekness becoming his position
as her worshipper. The conversation ended with his declaration that
he would not paint again until he had something in himself which was
worthy of being put into his picture.
"You'll help me, won't you?" he asked.