IV

There followed a bitter two years for this strange couple. Clayton

borrowed a thousand dollars--a more convenient number to remember, he

said, than three hundred dollars--and induced a prominent artist "who

happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a

year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and

some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt

that he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly:

"You may get there; God knows; but you need loads of work."

Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old

habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with

his clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he hoarded every cent

and, with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the

few dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by

elderly single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting

East Side streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an

individual stone. The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous.

In fact, Clayton could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the

birth of the great artist.

Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to

this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new

life. He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so

entertaining, even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life

over. She could enjoy vicariously by feeling his intense interest in

all living things. In return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an

attractive lunch, and just where to place it so that it would catch his

eye without calling out a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home

in his premises, so that all friction was removed from the young

artist's life. He made no acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked

grimly, doggedly, with a steadiness that he had never before known.

Once, early in the first winter, having to return to Boston on some

slight business, he permitted himself to be entrapped by old friends

and lazed away a fortnight. On his return Miss Marston noticed with a

pang that this outing had done him good; that he seemed to have more

spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, and more zest for his work. So,

in a methodical fashion, she thought out harmless dissipations for him.

She induced him to take her to the opera, even allowing him to think

that it was done from pure charity to her. Sunday walks in the

picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the Fifth Avenue

promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting novels, all

the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled into his

furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature that

seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him asleep

in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took

serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight

illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought

upon his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his

palette and put his hands upon her shoulders.

"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?"

"I am gambling," she replied, evasively.

"What do you expect to get if you win?"

"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a

line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well

enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is

powerful?"

"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy

it? You can't appreciate a picture."

She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say,

because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's

the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?"

Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity

in duality which comes to people who live and think and work together

for a common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit

to Boston. The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape

Ann, in order that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who

had been teaching him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too

late for that.

As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be

felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked

out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to

feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his

books, and at last the truck he had accumulated abroad. "More fuel for

the fire," he said bitterly.

"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston.

"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic

brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it,

which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle

for his cash or take it out in paint and canvas."

She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content

meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the

man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her

boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the

unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started,

but she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her

relatives, who considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her

pride.

The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate

habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all

that he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he

did not notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements

were relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his

resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his

work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him

for several days. Miss Marston's quiet assumption, however, that it was

only a question of months, irritated him.

"God must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he

would mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't

know good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his

face in his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her

arms about his head.

"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----"

"And then?" he asked, grimly.

"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber

Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in

momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to

passion, so much their end absorbed them.

At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art

stores. She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not

suspect that she was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully.

"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's

all fuel now."

Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time,

perhaps."

"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed

if you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will

never know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some

weeks later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the

sympathy of the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his

influence she succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed

others upon sale. She was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct

in her soul was justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud.

He listened carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting

itself to new ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money

she had just brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms

about her, he looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more

tenderly than he squinted at his canvases.

"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed

him away, making a pathetic bow.

"Thanks for your sense of gratitude. You're becoming more civilized.

Only I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful

for. Is money the only sacrifice you understand?"

"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be

anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest

enough, anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I

feel toward you--you're the best woman I ever knew."

"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can

have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left

of me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long

ago--no, you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like

that, and I don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a

little moved just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you

might acquire some kind of attachment for me, but love--you never

dreamed of it. And," she continued, after a moment, "I begin to think,

after watching you these two years, never will. So I am safe in saying

that I am yours to do with what you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if

you break my heart, your last fuel will be gone. You can't do without

me!"

It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent

man; a woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from

care. Clayton pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light,

for they had talked for hours before coming to the money question. The

terrible, passionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from

the neighboring housetops.

"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton.

"Why?"

"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then

wasted your love!"

"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted."

V

Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He

was master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite

pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the

knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an

absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his

secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the

social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world,

the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art

disappeared. He was content to forget the expression of himself--that

youthful longing--in contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In

other words, the art of creation was attended with less friction. He

worked unconsciously, and he did not, hen-like, call the attention of

the entire barnyard to each new-laid egg. He felt also that human,

comfortable weariness after labor when self sinks out of sight in the

universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. Perhaps the fact that he

could now earn enough to relieve him from actual want, that to some

extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it the conditions

of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring.

He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely

compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling

about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her

understand where he failed.

The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many

human relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in

one. The boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and

young clerks, so that all her time that could be spared from the

drudgery of housekeeping was spent in the studio. Slowly he became

amenable to her ever-present devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful

for her. And she was almost happy.

The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street

by an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly,

and Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted

without much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet

luncheon. As a result he did not return that night, but sent a note to

Miss Marston saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That

note chilled her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the

end, and the following week she spent in loneliness in the little

studio, sleeping upon the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that

the movement and stimulus of this vacation was what Clayton needed

most. She feared he was becoming stale, and she knew that in a week, or

a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he would return and plunge again into

his work.

He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the

conception of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon

she found the door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down

on the stairs and waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring

down the dreary hall and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to

suit the surroundings. At length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to

take her lunch and say absently that he was much absorbed by a new

picture and should not be disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He

seemed to refuse tacitly an entrance to the studio. So a week passed,

and then one day Clayton disappeared again, saying that he was going

into the country for another rest. He went out as he had come in,

absorbed in some dream or plan of great work. Pride kept her from

entering his rooms during that week.

One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his

work. This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she

had learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift

movements that seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture

before him was rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute

what his spirit conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently

great pleasure. His complete absorption indicated the most intense

though unconscious pleasure.

The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art,

but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton

had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without

surprise that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the

face, but she could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a

beach, in the early morning. So it had come.

When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both

stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was

planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just

between girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the

first; with the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined

an exquisite moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of

perfect repose, the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that

met the morning light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn,

joyous beginning of things in woman and in day.

Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it

immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I

can see, I can paint! God, it's worth the hell I have been through--"

He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him.

"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the

matter?"

"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first

at her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts

in the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously,

"it's all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a

little more so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this

fashion. Why don't you end it?"

She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she

whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and

seizing a paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand.

"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living

for all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it."

"It's your life against a little fame."

"No, against your life." They stood, nervelessly eying the picture.

"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried, at last, "why did God make men like you?

You take it all, everything that life gives, sunshine and love and hope

and opportunity. Your roots seem to suck out what you want from the

whole earth, and you leave the soil exhausted. My time has gone; I know

it, I know it, and I knew it would go. Now some other life will be

sacrificed. For you'll break her heart whether she's alive now or

you're dreaming of someone to come. You'll treat her as you have

everything. It isn't any fault--you don't understand." The words ended

with a moan. Clayton sat doggedly looking at his picture. But his heart

refused to be sad.