When Duska Filson had gone out into the woods that day to read Saxon's
runaway letter, she had at once decided to follow, with regal disdain
of half-way methods. To her own straight-thinking mind, unhampered
with petty conventional intricacies, it was all perfectly clear. The
ordinary woman would have waited, perhaps in deep distress and tearful
anxiety, for some news of the man she loved, because he had gone away,
and it is not customary for the woman to follow her wandering lover
over a quadrant of the earth's circumference. Duska Filson was not of
the type that sheds tears or remains inactive. To one man in the
world, she had said, "I love you," and to her that settled everything.
He had gone to the place where his life was imperiled in the effort to
bring back to her a clear record. If he were fortunate, her
congratulation, direct from her own heart and lips, should be the
first he heard. If he were to be plunged into misery, then above all
other times she should be there. Otherwise, what was the use of loving
him?
But, when the steamer was under way, crawling slowly down the world by
the same route he had taken, the days between quick sunrise and sudden
sunset seemed interminable.
Outwardly, she was the blithest passenger on the steamer, and daily
she held a sort of _salon_ for the few other passengers who were
doomed to the heat and the weariness of such a voyage.
But, when she was alone with Steele in the evening, looking off at the
moonlit sea, or in her own cabin, her brow would furrow, and her hands
would clench with the tensity of her anxiety. And, when at last Puerto
Frio showed across the purple water with a glow of brief sunset behind
the brown shoulder of San Francisco, she stood by the rail, almost
holding her breath in suspense, while the anchor chains ran out.
As soon as Steele had ensconced Mrs. Horton and Duska at the _Frances
y Ingles_, he hurried to the American Legation for news of Saxon. When
he left Duska in the hotel _patio_, he knew, from the anxious little
smile she threw after him, that for her the jury deciding the supreme
question was going out, leaving her as a defendant is left when the
panel files into the room where they ballot on his fate. He rushed
over to the legation with sickening fear that, when he came back, it
might have to be like the juryman whose verdict is adverse.
As it happened, he caught Mr. Pendleton without delay, and before he
had finished his question the envoy was looking about for his Panama
hat. Mr. Pendleton wanted to do several things at once. He wanted to
tell the story of Saxon's coming and going, and he wanted to go in
person, and have the party moved over to the legation, where they must
be his guests while they remained in Puerto Frio. It would be several
days before another steamer sailed north. They had missed by a day the
vessel on which Saxon had gone. Meanwhile, there were sights in the
town that might beguile the intervening time. Saxon had interested the
envoy, and Saxon's friends were welcome. Hospitality is simplified in
places where faces from God's country are things to greet with the
fervor of delight.
At dinner that evening, sitting at the right of the minister, Duska
heard the full narrative of Saxon's brief stay and return home. Mr.
Pendleton was at his best. There was no diplomatic formality, and the
girl, under the reaction and relief of her dispelled anxiety, though
still disappointed at the hapless coincidence of missing Saxon, was as
gay and childlike as though she had not just emerged from an
overshadowing uncertainty.
"I'm sorry that he couldn't accept my hospitality here at the
legation," said the minister at the end of his story, with much mock
solemnity, "but etiquette in diplomatic circles is quite rigid, and he
had an appointment to sleep at the palace."
"So, they jugged him!" chuckled Steele, with a grin that threatened
his ears. "I always suspected he'd wind up in the Bastile."
"He was," corrected the girl, her chin high, though her eyes sparkled,
"a guest of the President, and, as became his dignity, was supplied
with a military escort."
"He needn't permit himself any vaunting pride about that," Steele
assured her. "It's just difference of method. In our country, a
similar honor would have been accorded with a patrol wagon and a
couple of policemen."
After dinner, Duska insisted on dispatching a cablegram which should
intercept the _City of Rio_ at some point below the Isthmus. It was
not an original telegram, but, had Saxon received it, it would have
delighted him immoderately. She said:
"I told you so. Sail by _Orinoco_."
The following morning, there were tours of discovery, personally
conducted by the young Mr. Partridge. Duska had wanted to leave the
carriage at the old cathedral, and stand flat against the blank wall,
but she refrained, and satisfied herself with marching up very close
and regarding it with hostility. As the carriage turned into the main
plaza, a regiment of infantry went by, the band marching ahead
playing, with the usual blare, the national anthem. Then, as the
coachman drew up his horses at the legation door, there was sudden
confusion, followed by the noise of popping guns. It was the hour just
preceding the noon _siesta_. The plaza was indolent with lounging
figures, and droning in the sleeping sing-song chorus of lazy voices.
At the sound, which for the moment impressed the girl like the
exploding of a pack of giant crackers, a sudden stillness fell on the
place, closely followed by a startled outcry of voices as the figures
in the plaza broke wildly for cover, futilely attempting to shield
their faces with their arms against possible bullets. Then, there came
a deeper detonation, and somewhere the crumbling of an adobe wall. The
first sound came just as Mrs. Horton was stepping to the sidewalk.
Duska had already leaped lightly out, and stood looking on in
surprise. But Mr. Partridge knew his Puerto Frio. He led them hastily
through the huge street-doors, and they had no sooner passed than the
porter, with many mumbled prayers to the Holy Mother, slammed the
great barriers against the outside world. The final assault for _Vegas
y Libertad_ had at last begun.
Mr. Pendleton had insisted that the ladies remain at the rear of the
house, but Duska, with her adventurous passion for seeing all there
was to see, threatened insubordination. To her, the idea of leaving
several perfectly good balconies vacant, and staying at the back of a
house, when the only battle one would probably ever see was occurring
in the street just outside, seemed far from sensible. But, after she
had looked out for a few moments, had seen a belated fruit-vender
crumple to the street, and had smelled the acrid stench of the burnt
powder, she was willing to turn away.
Inasmuch as the stay of Duska and her aunt involved several days of
waiting for the sailing of the next ship, Duska was somewhat surprised
at hearing nothing from Saxon in the meanwhile. He had had time to
reach the point to which the cablegram was addressed. She had told him
she would sail by the _Orinoco_, since that was the first available
steamer. At such a time, Saxon would certainly answer that message.
She fancied he would even manage to join her steamer, either by coming
down to meet it, or waiting to intercept it at the place where he had
received her message. Consequently, when she reached that port and
sailed again without either seeing Saxon or receiving a message from
him, she was decidedly surprised, and, though she did not admit it
even to herself, she was likewise alarmed.
It happened that one of her fellow passengers on the steamer _Orinoco_
was a tall, grave gentleman, who wore his beard trimmed in the French
fashion, and who in his bearing had a certain air of distinction.
On a coast vessel, it was unusual for a passenger to hold himself
apart and reserved against the chance companionships of a voyage. Yet,
this gentleman did so. He had been introduced by the captain as M.
Herve, had bowed and smiled, but since that he had not sought to
further the acquaintanceship, or to recognize it except by a polite
bow or smile when he passed one of the party on his solitary deck
promenades.
Possibly, this perfunctory greeting would have been the limit and
confine of their associations, had he not chanced to be standing one
day near enough to Duska and Steele to overhear their conversation.
The voyage was almost ended, and New York was not far off. Long ago,
the lush rankness of the tropics had given way to the more temperate
beauty of the higher zones, and this beauty was the beauty of early
autumn.
Steele was talking of Frederick Marston, and the girl was listening
with interest. As long as Saxon insisted on remaining the first
disciple, she must of course be interested in his demi-god. Just now,
however, Saxon's name was not mentioned. Finally, the stranger turned,
and came over with a smile.
"When I hear the name of Frederick Marston," he said, "I am challenged
to interest. Would I be asking too much if I sought to join you in
your talk of him?"
The girl looked up and welcomed him with her accustomed graciousness,
while Steele drew up a camp-stool, and the Frenchman seated himself.
For a while, he listened sitting there, his fingers clasped about his
somewhat stout knee, and his face gravely speculative, contributing to
the conversation nothing except his attention.
"You see, I am interested in Marston," he at length began.
The girl hesitated. She had just been expressing the opinion, possibly
absorbed from Saxon, that the personality of the artist was extremely
disagreeable. As she glanced at M. Herve, the thought flashed through
her mind that this might possibly be Marston himself. She knew that
master's fondness for the incognito. But she dismissed the idea as
highly fanciful, and even ventured frankly to repeat her criticism.
At last, Herve replied, with great gravity:
"Mademoiselle, I had the honor to know the great Frederick Marston
once. It was some years ago. He keeps himself much as a hermit might
in these days, but I am sure that the portion of the story I know is
not that of the vain man or of the poseur. Possibly," he hesitated
modestly, "it might interest mademoiselle?"
"I'm sure of it," declared the girl.
"Marston," he began, "drifted into the Paris _ateliers_ from your
country, callow, morbid, painfully young and totally inexperienced. He
was a tall, gaunt boy with a beard that grew hardly as fast as his
career, though finally it covered his face. Books and pictures he knew
with passionate love. With life, he was unacquainted; at men, he
looked distantly over the deep chasm of his bashfulness. Women he
feared, and of them he knew no more than he knew of dragons.
"He was eighteen then. He was in the _Salon_ at twenty-two, and at the
height of fame at twenty-six. He is now only thirty-three. What he
will be at forty, one can not surmise."
The Frenchman gazed for a moment at the spiraling smoke from his
cigarette, and halted with the uncertainty of a bard who doubts his
ability to do justice to his lay.
"I find the story difficult." He smiled with some diffidence, then
continued: "Had I the art to tell it, it would be pathos. Marston was
a generous fellow, beloved by those who knew him, but quarantined by
his morbid reserve from wide acquaintanceship. Temperament--ah, that
is a wonderful thing! It is to a man what clouds and mists are to a
land! Without them, there is only arid desert--with too many, there
are storm and endless rain and dreary winds. He had the storms and
rain and winds in his life--but over all he had the genius! The
masters knew that before they had criticized him six months. In a
year, they stood abashed before him."
"Go on, please!" prompted Duska, in a soft voice of sympathetic
interest.
"He dreaded notoriety, he feared fame. He never had a photograph
taken, and, when it was his turn to pose in the sketch classes, where
the students alternate as models for their fellows, his nervousness
was actual suffering. To be looked at meant, for him, to drop his eyes
and find his hands in his way--the hands that could paint the finest
pictures in Europe!"
"To understand his half-mad conduct, one must understand his half-mad
genius. To most men who can command fame, the plaudits of clapping
hands are as the incense of triumph. To him, there was but the art
itself--the praise meant only embarrassment. His ideal was that of the
English poet--a land where
'--only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall
blame:
And no one shall work for money and no one shall work for fame.'
That was what he wished, and could not have in Paris.
"It was in painting only that he forgot himself, and became a
disembodied magic behind a brush. When a picture called down unusual
comment from critics and press, he would disappear--remain out of
sight for months. No one knew where he went. Once, I remember, in my
time, he stayed away almost a year.
"He knew one woman in Paris, besides the models, who were to him
impersonal things. Of that one woman alone, he was not afraid. She was
a pathetic sort of a girl. Her large eyes followed him with adoring
hero-worship. She was the daughter of an English painter who could not
paint, one Alfred St. John, who lodged in the rear of the floor above.
She herself was a poet who could not write verse. To her, he talked
without bashfulness, and for her he felt vast sorrow. Love! _Mon
dieu_, no! If he had loved her, he would have fled from her in terror!
"But she loved him. Then, he fell ill. Typhoid it was, and for weeks
he was in his bed, with the papers crying out each day what a disaster
threatened France and the world, if he should die. And she nursed him,
denying herself rest. Typhoid may be helped by a physician, but the
patient owes his life to the nurse. When he recovered, his one
obsessing thought was that his life really belonged to her rather than
to himself. I have already said he was morbid half to the point of
madness. Genius is sometimes so!
"By no means a constant _absintheur_, in his moods he liked to watch
the opalescent gleams that flash in a glass of _Pernod_. One night,
when he had taken more perhaps than was his custom, he returned to his
lodgings, resolved to pay the debt, with an offer of marriage.
"I do not know how much was the morbidness of his own temperament, and
how much was the absinthe. I know that after that it was all wormwood
for them both.
"She was proud. She soon divined that he had asked her solely out of
sympathy, and perhaps it was at her urging that he left Paris alone.
Perhaps, it was because his fame was becoming too great to allow his
remaining there longer a recluse. At all events, he went away without
warning--fled precipitantly. No one was astonished. His friends only
laughed. For a year they laughed, then they became a trifle uneasy.
Finally, however, these fears abated. St. John, his father-in-law,
admitted that he was in constant correspondence with the master, and
knew where he was in hiding. He refused to divulge his secret of
place. He said that Marston exacted this promise--that he wanted to
hide. Then came new pictures, which St. John handled as his
son-in-law's agent. Paris delighted in them. Marston travels about
now, and paints. Whether he is mildly mad, or only as mad as his
exaggerated genius makes him, I have often wondered."
"What became of the poor girl?" Duska's voice put the question, very
tenderly.
"She, also, left Paris. Whether she let her love conquer her pride and
joined him, or whether she went elsewhere--also alone, no one knows
but St. John, and he does not encourage questions."
"I hope," said the girl slowly, "she went back, and made him love
her."
Herve caught the melting sympathy in Duska's eyes, and his own were
responsive.
"If she did," he said with conviction, "it must have made the master
happy. He gave her what he could. He did not withhold his heart from
stint, but because it was so written." He paused, then in a lighter
voice went on:
"And, speaking of Marston, one finds it impossible to refrain from
reciting an extraordinary adventure that has just befallen his first
disciple, Mr. Saxon, who is a countryman of yours."
The girl's eyes came suddenly away from the sea to the face of the
speaker, as he continued:
"I happened to be on the streets, when wiser folk were in their homes,
just after the battle in Puerto Frio. I found Mr. Robert
Saxon--perhaps the second landscape painter in the world--lying
wounded on a pavement among dead revolutionists, and I helped to carry
him to an _insurrecto_ haunt. He was smuggled unconscious on a ship
sailing for some point in my own land--Havre, I think. _Allons!_ Life
plays pranks with men that make the fairy tales seem feeble!"
Steele had been so astounded that he had found no opportunity to stop
the Frenchman. Now, as he made a sign, M. Herve looked at the girl.
She was sitting quite rigid in her steamer chair, and her lips were
white. Her eyes were on his own, and were entirely steady.
"Will you tell us the whole story, M. Herve?" she asked.
"_Mon dieu!_ I have been indiscreet. I have made a _faux pas_!"
The Frenchman's distress was genuinely deep.
"No," answered the girl. "I must know all the story. I thank you for
telling me."
As Herve told his story, he realized that the woman whom Saxon had
turned back to warn, according to Rodman's sketching, was the woman
sitting before him on the deck of the _Orinoco_.