A DINNER IN CARRARA
The _entresol_ of the Lorimer mansion was occupied by the dining
hall, a room of magnificent proportions and superbly conceived in
decoration, the elegance of its detail being dominated by the size
and breadth of a few features.
One wall was breached by a wide entrance, from which descended a
series of steps to a lower hall; opposite this entrance the high wall
contained an admirable reproduction of the painting of Alma Tadema of
the Hunt of Diana, between two high windows, issuing upon balconies
overlooking the Hudson; either end of the room held two enormous
mirrors framed in Japanese bronze designed in flowers, fruits, and
trailing creatures of the field; under these astonishing mirrors were
two fire places equipped in monumental brass; on the sides of the
entrance the walls were partially concealed by two large Madonnas,
one by Perugino, the other by Tintoretto, and under these pictures
two sideboards in carved teak wood held a rich assortment of blue
India ware grouped around a few high silver vases, whose surfaces in
repoussé reviewed the spoils of the hunter; the corners of the room
received four large groups of statuary, which separately symbolized
the seasons; the ceiling was a massy plane of gold unrelieved by
any designs, and from it depended three chandeliers of cut glass in
blue aqua-marine like Brazilian stones; the walls were treated with
a pale veronica blue, the chairs were of twisted Honduras bay wood,
and yellow silken curtains masked the light that poured in at the
casements, whose outlook faced the Palisades, and caught the purple
banks of the New Jersey hills.
The floor of this apartment was in Pompeian mosaic, and at its centre
rose the singular dining table, which was literally nothing else
than a huge block of stucco of a pale terra-cotta ivory color, cut
out underneath into arches, with a frieze at the edges of the table
top representing oak leaves and acorns. This rigid and somewhat
unaccommodating erection had a very beautiful effect indeed, and
added an entablature to the room that made it more stately and
impressive. Heavy rugs invested the floor, and banished its stony
coldness, which effort on their part was successfully reinforced
by the flickering and homelike light of the candles in the quaint
majolica candelabra over the mantels at both ends of the room. This
at night, but otherwise and when not animated by the presence of its
natural human occupants the great chamber uttered a note shading into
an unpleasant solemnity, as of a public hall or a museum foyer.
It was that liquid season of the year as the spring retires from
the presence of summer, leaving at the latter’s feet the garlands
of her flowers, sweeping away the last fragrant curtains of April’s
showers, and inviting the auroras of the sun to rise higher in the
skies, while, as she fades away on the white blossoms of May, she
already touches the petals of a thousand waking roses, and summons
the tides of life, upon whose floods June approaches, to renew the
world. It was indeed a little before the opening of June 2000,
that, as the shades of night fell, or rather as its shadows grew
accentuated beneath the orbed splendor of the moon, a group of six
persons were seated around the dining table of the Lorimers, whose
physiognomies and demeanors were sufficiently contrasted, though
harmonized by a common culture and deportment. The table—the stucco
block we have mentioned—was itself a picture of bounty and refined
effects. A large golden _epergne_ shaped as a cornucopia borne in the
arms of tritons on the back of a silver wave, stood at its centre,
holding a tumultuous wealth of roses, the table itself was covered
with a delicate sheeny diaper of silver threads, a _chef d’oeuvre_
of eastern workmanship, found by Robert Lorimer in a bazaar on the
east side of New York a tantalizing and wonderful mixture of linen
and metallic filaments, teazed into a low relief, on which figured
peacocks and weeping willows by sweeping streams; and the service
was—at the moment when we are called upon to observe it—made up of
faintly golden chased Bavarian glass, with old Sevres china.
At the head of the table sat Julieta Lorimer, the mother of Helen,
and the singing Andalusian orange gatherer of Robert’s youthful days;
on either side of this still beautiful woman were two contrasted
figures, one a Catholic clergyman wearing a clerical garb in which
the distinction of the wearer among the princes of the church was
simply denoted by the red buttons on his vest. Facing this dignitary
was a tall and foreign looking man with a high forehead that gained
an unnatural prolongation by reason of its retreating lines of hair
with rather somnolent and unresponsive eyes, and the relics of a
constantly vanishing smile. By his side sat his wife, a flourishing
and elderly lady somewhat over dressed and wearing a complexion of
surprising brightness and vivacity. Facing this personage and by the
side of the cardinal was a handsome man, younger than any of his sex
in the room, abundantly supplied with soft flowing chestnut hair,
having pleasant and scrutinizing eyes, a mouth of much mobility, a
matured moustache, and hands peculiarly well shaped, which, at the
moment, were drawn together before him, resting on the table while
his half turned head looked, as did all the rest of the company,
towards the sixth member of the party who had left her chair at the
opposite end of the board, from her mother, and now stood at the
foot of the Perugino Madonna, from whose sheenless surface her face
was just withdrawn, as she returned the attention of the company and
spoke. It was Helen Lorimer herself.
A very inattentive observer of the human face and form would have
been arrested by the figure before us, and his interest would have
noted the enhancement given to both by dress and action. A gown of
blue silk bound with a belt of meshed gold, held by a Chinese buckle
framing a carved, apple-green jadeite, the waist fitting loosely
and falling away from an uncovered neck encircled by a thrice wound
necklace of pearls, with sleeves slightly _epanché_, trimmed with a
gold thread, and covering tightly closed undersleeves of Irish lace,
that were kept to the wrists by two hyacinth bracelets, arrayed
this unusual person; and, as the observer’s eyes traveled upward to
the face his admiration might have passed through various phases
of approval, wonder, or delight, according to his years, and the
temperamental warmth of his appreciation of a woman’s beauty. The
face was moulded in ample lines, it carried the impress of generous
impulses, it was full and strong, but in no measure lost thereby
the imprint of a delicate and lovely femininity. Soft folds of dark
brown hair, gathered at the back of the head in a chignon, and
plaited over the forehead in rather high folds, were decorated by
two side combs of filagree gold enriched with garnets, between which
and over the chignon itself rose a twig of silver, jewelled with
red tourmalines. The hair so sumptuously arranged became the lovely
visage it framed. The noticeable impression of its shortness was
caused by the full cheeks deeply colored and wearing the complexion
of the south, but, that observation passed, the mind fastened upon
the glowing and tender eyes, that, by some habit of their owner, at
moments half shut, as if in reverie, and then opened slowly with
ravishing smiles that played around them, and lingered long enough
to permit the parted mouth to close, and reveal its rosy cushions,
which did not become voluptuously weak, but formed themselves into an
organ fitted for speech and for caresses. The nose was straight and
firm, not pronounced, not lending to the face the repugnant sense of
intellectualism; the ears were small and shell-like, barely detected
beneath the encompassing hair; her hands, raised in description,
were perhaps characterized by strength, perhaps a little broad, but
finely veined, long fingered, facile, and gracious, and wearing, as
she stands under the madonna, two rings, on the right hand, a spinel
solitaire and a diamond marquise. And her voice?—that most excellent
thing—it completes our capitulation! It is the mingled tones of a
rich contralto and the lower registers of the soprano, perhaps it
was too sweet and only seemed to gain the requisite steadiness of
authority, when raised in pitch, and urged by some dominant emotion.
The whole composition was one of character and physical charm,
with the accompanying color values of artistic dress and a noble
environment.
“Yes,” said the voice in which was vibrant a reminiscent joy, “it
was at Florence that father saw the advertisement of the sale of
this picture. I remember the evening that, as the sun embrowned the
Palazzo Vecchio, in a gorgeous sunset over the distant Piedmont
hills, we drove to the auction room in the Via Brunelleschi, and
found the room crowded with a discordant mixture of English, French,
Italians, and a few rather timid Americans upon whom however, the
discrete auctioneer placed his hopes of establishing a profitable
standard of value for his pictures. It was amusing enough. Father
was determined to have the picture because I told him I liked it,”
and here the eyes drooped, and then the play of smiles, “but he ran
against an equally determined Englishman. I think he must have had
a daughter who liked it too. Well the auctioneer was in a frenzy of
happiness trailing his bait before two such promising prizes—when
suddenly there were no more bids,” the laugh again, “and then I
saw that the Englishman and father had recognized each other; they
made some signal and declined of be used against each other for the
auctioneer’s advantage. And the last bid was not from either father
or the Englishman. The owner of the picture had made it himself. The
picture was not sold that evening; in reality, the owner was its
purchaser, but the next day the auctioneer came to father and said
something about the ‘regrettable incident’ and offered it to father
at his own terms. And so it came to America.”
Miss Lorimer had returned to her seat and the company again
readjusted themselves to their former positions. We may pause a
moment to make the individuals of this company better known. The
cardinal was the recently elected prelate Monsignor Fenton of Newark,
N. J., the tall man with his wife, Count and Countess Schinazi of
Hungary, and the handsome young American, Professor Dale of the
New York City college, a philosopher in his own behalf, and the
instructor of metaphysical youth.
“An entertaining and serviceable story indeed,” said the cardinal as
he touched his lips with the Chartreuse in a sparkling thimble of
red and gold, “but I expected you would let us know what reference
that had to the subject nearest to my own heart—the subjection of the
Church in Italy, which my daughter,” and the speaker half oblivious
of the rest turned to Helen Lorimer with a paternal gesture of
affection, “is a subject not lightly considered by yourself.”
Miss Lorimer leaned back in her chair, a tide of color deepened in
her face, an interior light added a stranger power of beauty to her
face, seeming to issue from her eyes, and she assumed such an ardor
of expectancy that the young professor gazed at her with a deliberate
and not altogether courteous absorption. Her seriousness quickly
disappeared, she moved forward, and raising the cordial to her lips
invited the group in a tone of raillery to drink in a bond of secrecy.
“Yes, I have a secret and you shall know it, but what the Cardinal, I
think, wishes you all to hear is something that happened after father
bought the picture.”
The cardinal demurred, just a trifle, saying that “he had not had the
story so much in mind, as some discussion of the savage intolerance
of the enemies of the Church, a topic of some interest to Miss
Lorimer and himself, and not distantly connected with the secret Miss
Lorimer referred to,” and the prelate again turned to the Chartreuse
appreciatively, and smiled at the matron at his side.
Julieta interrupted, “Tell the story, Helen; I remember it faintly,
but I do recall the excitement it threw your father in, and how
quickly it ended our visit in Florence. That was ten years ago; how
time flies!” and a shadow of pain, that all noticed, crossed the
speaker’s face, vanishing almost before seen, as she with a gesture
of encouragement looked up again at her daughter.
The Countess Schinazi raised her glasses inquiringly, and then
touched the arm of her husband who had been subjected to the same
entrancement which kept the young American speechless, and wondering;
“Alfred, ten years ago we were at the baths at Carlsbad, and don’t
you remember,” she dropped the glasses and tapped her dreaming
spouse a little more sharply on the shoulder, who turned to her with
the vanishing smile undergoing a peculiar expansion that threw the
lower portion of his physiognomy into an ocean of creases; “we were
at dinner with the young Misses Tarbox, when their brother came in
and said there was a report that Robert Lorimer had been killed in
Florence? Can’t you recall that?” and the tap became so sharp a
punctuation in his side, that Count Schinazi exploded volubly; “Veree
vell, my dear, veree vell. It was an occasion of some interest to me.
I svallowed a peach pit.” The laugh was general, the count’s chronic
risibility developed to his eyebrows, and the countess oscillated
with pleasure.
“It is evident that the story must be disposed of,” continued Miss
Lorimer, and her eyes moved pleasantly from the professor to the
cardinal, and back again lingering, it might have been observed, a
little longer on the former, “You see father, after he had finished
with the auctioneer, went back to the sales-room to give some
directions as to the packing and address, and to be quite sure that
the picture he had really bought, would be the one which would be
shipped. Pardon,” turning with a deprecatory smile to her Hungarian
guests, “the intimation, but these mistakes have occurred. Next to
the sales-room there had been a meeting of anarchists the night
previous, and somehow one of the speakers had alluded to the fact
that a rich American, an oppressor of the poor in his own country,
had bought at the auction then going on, an expensive painting of the
Pope, which in his opinion should be destroyed, and not be permitted
to go to a new land, to spread the seeds of superstition. Those were
his very words, as reported in the Florentine papers;” the cardinal
flushed, and he reviewed the company with a hasty and indignant
glance; “Father identified the painting, and later in the day watched
its removal. A little remnant of the anarchistic meeting was present
as the picture came out from the house, and as it was put on the
wagon to be taken away these men, as if by prearrangement rushed
on the men carrying it, and driving them off, began to hammer and
hack at the box, shouting, ‘_death to the enemy of our country_,’”
the cardinal’s eyes were now riveted on the fair woman, who was
herself conscious of his inspection, “Father saw the melee, and ran
among them, denouncing the outrage. Incensed at the interruption the
marauders attacked him, and he was knocked down and kicked, and then
the _gendarmes_ flew to the spot, and the demonstration was over,
with the culprits in the hands of the police. Father appeared against
them and they were fined. That is the story.”
“Ignorance inflamed by malice, flattering itself with the empty
nostrums of a shallow and conceited pedantry, torments—and will
torment—the church,” was the sententious reflection of the cardinal.
“And yet,” broke in the Professor, whose voice while very clear,
with the best enunciation of an American scholar, had a most musical
quality, a peculiar fluty cadence that caught the ear quickly; it was
not lost on the cardinal, and it brought a stare on the countess’s
face that meant worlds; “and yet, is not the church much to blame for
the enmity it provokes; has it wisely construed its responsibility
to the advance of human knowledge? Was it sagacious, or, less
obsequiously, was it just, to excommunicate Father Alfred Loisy at
the instigation of the superior of the Jesuits, at the beginning of
the last century, when the conflict raged over the attitude of the
church towards what was contemptuously termed modernism? The vulgar
tirades of street agitators, and the taunts of mere worldlings are
indeed despicable, but must the church remain impregnable to thought?”
“The church,” answered the cardinal, who was now thoroughly aroused,
and who, as he spoke, kept his eyes fastened on Helen Lorimer, “is
impregnable to guesses which pass for thought. It never forgets its
mission or its commission, one is to save the world—as far as it
can—the other is a divine consecration which keeps it imperturbably
within its office amid the turmoil and the tempests of contemporary
arguments. What is modernism? It has been a texture of speculations,
and practically, as far as the church antagonizes it, it has meant
the dethronement of God, so far as his creative functions are
involved, and its exculpation is what it is pleased to call the
testimony of the rocks. Nothing in physics or chemistry is alien to
religious feeling, but the process of detraction and subtraction
which reads Evolution for God is intolerable. Against a determinate
evolution the church may have little objection; it is itself an
example of determinate evolution. Newman showed that.”
“Pardon me, but I tink,” interjected the Count, while the countess
viewed him with an irrepressible pride, “I tink that the church is
as you say here in America all right. But I tink it is veery old and
just a leetle sick. It might, I tink, as you say in America ‘get
a fresh hold’ if the Pope came right here, here in these states,
vere he might be, as you say in America, a leetle more chesty, more
independent, more free, more, what you say, ‘on the job.’”
Julieta smiled, the countess frankly laughed, Helen looked musingly
at her plate, the professor was mystified, the cardinal glanced an
instant at the speaker with a fleeting expression of scorn, and the
count himself, plainly a comedian, kept the vestiges of his smile
forcibly confined to the corners of his mouth.
Again the cardinal spoke and again he directed his remarks to the
professor, while his eyes sought those of Helen Lorimer.
“As a metaphysician are you quite sure that the reports of your
senses are real, that the so-called phenomena of the world are
indubitably, profoundly, essentially true. Is a cartload of bones in
the Cretaceous as really as much of a fact as the thirst and asking
of your own soul, as the hunger after righteousness, for which there
can be no permanent assuagement outside of the postulate of God, and
some sort of authorized convention between him and man?”
The professor turned to his critic, and said with a smile that was
urbanity itself, “My dear cardinal, as a metaphysician I am not
averse to regarding the world and the reports of our senses from
several points of view, but as a natural human being I unquestionably
bow to the requirements of my environment and have no more doubt
as to the reality of all that geology tells us than I have of the
desirable existence of our hostess,” bowing to Julieta, “or the
charm of her daughter, or the necessary functions of your own
zealous service to those of your faith, and I think that the church
misjudges her prerogatives if she regards the cartload of bones from
the Cretaceous with anything else than the gravest interest, and is
prepared to accept their witness to something, as sacredly as she now
ascribes meaning to the words of revelation.”
The cardinal fidgetted a little, fingering his chartreuse, and
audibly murmured, “Philosophy inside a classroom and common sense
outside of it, are, it seems, to be irreconcilable aspects of life to
the end of the chapter.”
It was then that the voice of Miss Lorimer rich and full, captured
the ears of the disputants as she leaned over towards the professor
with a smile of reconciliation; “My friends, while the fruit is being
served to you, let me monopolize your attention to the confession
of a secret of mine own, which the cardinal knows about, and which
curiously the count has most recklessly invaded, though I bear him no
ill will on that account,” and she extended her hand deprecatingly
towards that pleased personage.
“I am sure ze company vill be much in my debt Mees Lorimer, if I
haf ze honor to have forced you, as you say in the politic, to, to
disgorge,” and the count with an ineffable grin of amusement and
satisfaction over his verbal conquest leaned back in his chair,
while the countess in a tone of petulant cajolery, waved at him with
her glasses, saying, “Really, Schinazi, you are too ridiculous,” a
reproach which developed the count’s smile as far as the ends of his
twisted moustache.
The chairs were drawn somewhat closer to the table and Miss Lorimer
continued, “Doesn’t it seem true to you all that occasions are
created to be used, and that those who use them make history. An
opportunity missed means a disfigured, or abortive, at least, record
perhaps for an individual, perhaps for a nation. Now, perhaps I will
offend you, Count, it seems to me that Europe is growing very old,
that its interest is in its memories; its energy is traditional
only. A breath would destroy it. The chastening power of revolution
has been felt there, but since 1790 no strong and lasting currents
of feeling have done much to change its political surface. Russia
is hopelessly inert, stiffened into inaction after its anxieties at
the beginning of the last century. Life there is a routine, death a
release. Faith has vanished because faith in living, in thinking, in
being, in doing has vanished too. It is a tomb of ruins, peopled by
sacristans, threaded by tourists: is it not a rubbish heap, in which
by dint of digging one can find mementoes of greatness, but where any
splendors of the spirit no longer can be described, much less felt?
Is it not wrong to leave the fountain head of our religion—yours and
mine, Cardinal—in a choked up and littered field, where its waters
of healing and life run the serious risk of being hidden in the dust
of neglect and the refuse of abuse? My secret, friends, is to bring
the Pope to this land of ours where life, movement, action, progress,
ideals, thought, play over every thing and where even the things we
hate or oppose have color and look alive?”
The silence that followed this announcement was a tribute to its
novelty, and the listeners appeared to be taking note of their
sensations, as if wondering to what extent they either cared for it,
or approved it. A slightly whimsical smile of interrogation rested on
Miss Lorimer’s face, as she looked at the Count, and perhaps it was
in response to that which made that person first break the silence,
just a little disconcerting to the last speaker.
“I tink, Mees Lorimer, that Europe iz not a charnel house as you
suggest nor edzactly a grave. It iz old, it iz a leetle, as you say,
played out. It iz tired. A good many peoples haf lived and died
there, and it iz monotinous to go on doing ze same thing so long. I
tink the trouble just now in Europe iz that she go to sleep and haf
nightmares.” The Countess glowing abundantly as she watched with
transparent happiness her husband move along the slippery path of his
elocution, led the laugh, “But it vill vake up; it iz imposs—ible dot
someting not happen—and soon veery quvick. Dere vill be what you call
a ‘meex-up,’ and den de Europe spring up, and shout, and jump up, and
cry _Allons_; I tink so.”
Professor Dale who had eagerly watched the count with not a trace of
amusement, answered across the table with his eyes still seeking the
count’s,
“Few things could be stranger than the present stupor of Europe. It
is asleep; it has the sleeping sickness. Fifty years ago in 1950 it
looked as if its toy game of kings and queens, and the rattle of its
tin soldiers was coming near an end and the people were responsively
rising to new opportunities. But it passed as a shower passes in
the night, and then deeper, deeper, the spell of a hypnotic apathy
falls, and we hear only its snores, unless as the Count Schinazi
intimates it occasionally screams at a bad dream.”
“Theodore, just the other day,” it was the pleasantly modulated
voice of Julieta, “read me a strange impeachment of Europe. It said
that Europe had become paralyzed; music and painting and literature
had come to America, and it pictured an ancient hearthstone in an
artist’s studio with chairs and instruments and easels exquisitely
made, and with a fire burning with a comforting invitation, but with
no artists, no hands to guide the strings or the brushes, and only an
old janitress looking curiously in at the half open door, while her
cat strayed forward and slept at the fire’s edge.”
“I don’t pretend to be able to talk about such things,” alertly
interjected the Countess, “but really, you know, I feel that Europe
is a play ground, a big show, an expensive continental museum with
regimentals and dressed things walking up and down and rattling
their spurs and saluting, amid splendid old palaces, and lakes with
charmed boats and rivers, fixed up with castles, and all kept going
you see, as long as America pays for the machinery and the orchestra;
Bless me! I shouldn’t say such things in the Count’s hearing, except
that as a breeder of Game Cocks in America he still honors a line
of warriors;” the malignant sally, that practically put the entire
company in a quandary, was not resented by the Count, whose smile
escaping its seclusion behind his curled moustache, as if with the
levity of an unusual freedom, spread to the roots of his hair and
the back of his ears. This benignity kept every thing in place, and
it was the intellectual accent of the Cardinal that next solicited
attention.
“Europe to-day at the beginning of the twenty-first century has
the _rigor mortis_. Its genius and talent follows the incentive
of gain. They come _here_ and they thrive. One hundred years have
administered to us an enormously enlarged culture and it insatiably
pulls from Europe every promising blade of creative power. The
stimulus of applause, of an augmented audience, and in no vulgar
sense is here also. The battle ground of opinion is here. Our hard
and boisterous crudities are passed, we are no longer menaced with
alien segregations, the ethnic problem has vanished, not altogether
by solution, but in nature, like some mythic tree, we bear many kinds
and many colors of flowers, as it were; a modified Italian—but still
Italian—rose here, a changed French—but still French—lily there, a
new Hebraic artichoke—but still Jewish—on this bough, and a less
redolent German hibiscus—but still German—on that, and all fed,
and rejoicingly fed, from the same national root. We have become
cosmic, and in our land the final clash of the conflict of opinions
approaches, unless indeed this fagged out earth is doomed to an
eternal struggle with the battle grounds changed from continent to
continent. Science and Religion offer their clues to the central
mysteries. The measure of their values is determined _here_. I think
Miss Lorimer’s plea should be respected. Let the Pope—the Head of the
Church—come to close quarters with his antagonist, the Apollyon of
material Lust, and of intellectual denial.”
“Thank you, Cardinal,” it was again the voice of the first speaker,
“I almost thought that my audacious fancy, bold as it was, had been
covered up, and thereby just a little abashed, by reflections that
were intended to keep us from considering it at all. Every one was
jumping the traces, and running a field. Yes! shall we bring the Pope
to America?”
“Quevstion! quevstion!” murmured the Count, like the impatient
voters at a primary, while the cardinal with an exorbitant curiosity
painting itself upon his expressive countenance, looked around the
table, the goal of his scrutiny evidently being the Professor, and
the unrebuked silence continued, until, as if answering the voiceless
implication that it was he who should break it, the Professor said;
“Yes! the challenge has been often given; Let it be accepted, where
the swords of both duellists are near enough to each other to not
only strike fire, but to give the _coup de grace_.”
This truculence was perhaps a little harsh for the occasion,
and Professor Dale felt its awkwardness; he turned blushing to
his neighbor; “Pardon, Miss Lorimer, but the Cardinal is an
uncompromising foe, and I suppose,” leaning to the Cardinal, “the
Church would prefer death to sufferance?”
“Hardly,” answered the prelate, “the Church has often prospered upon
little more than toleration, but on the other hand if it came to
Science, asking for sufferance, it would be told to close its doors.”
“But vy! vy!” and the Count’s voice rose with a compromising
seriousness, “dere is room for every ting, dis and dis, and dat and
dat, and so ve grow a beeg, beeg, rug, vith a tousand colors and
tousand threads, and on it the centuries come and go, and eet nefer,
nefer wear out,” the ardent Hungarian had an inspired look, and his
wife who apparently compensated him for her snubs, by an unimpaired
adulation whenever he opened his mouth, became visibly grave, and
dispensed a glance around the table, as if in admonition of his
captivating simile.
“Well! Speaking of rugs,” said the Cardinal dryly “they are
associated in my mind with Turks, and Turks are not the most
desirable citizens; they certainly are not members of the Church,
and a national rug of a thousand threads and colors is only another
metaphor for chaos.”
“You mean Cardinal,” said the Professor, “that the Count’s
promiscuous carpet, would never harmonize in color or design with the
tapestries of the Church?”
“Perhaps,” gaily rejoined Miss Lorimer, “I can twist the Count’s rug
into an image that suits the Cardinal and myself better. It shall
have a thousand colors and a thousand threads—ten thousand for that
matter—but they will not make a miscellaneous and inconsequent woof;
they will form a beautiful and gracious figure,” and the lady smiled
as if there then floated before her mind’s eye something that fled
from the profanation of a name.
The company rose with probably a different conclusion as to the value
and meaning of Miss Lorimer’s disclosure, resting in the mind of
each. But it dwelt with a singular poignancy of interest with two,
and one of these, at least, lavished upon it a wealth of improving
comment.
Scarcely had the group with gliding step reached the entrance of the
grand chamber, and the attendant had drawn aside the curtains which
revealed as they parted the noble stairway descending to a lower
plane, constituted by a wide hall now enveloped in a golden glow,
that descended from an electric corona, almost two stories above it;
from which again suites of rooms extended to the right and to the
left,—scarcely, had this moment arrived, when a resounding rap smote
the front door of the hall, and, as a servant darted towards this
entrance, the door itself was pushed from the outside, and the tall
figure of a handsome elderly man entered. The face of the stranger
was disturbed, and he flung down his walking stick with a gesture of
despair. The next moment he raised his eyes to the arrested guests,
and repressing his impatience moved to the foot of the stairway and
spoke;
“Ah! my friends you must pardon my absence. It was not intentional. I
see too well what pleasures I have missed. Of course Helen explained
to you that I was called away down town to attend a meeting of
directors of the bank, who are negotiating with the city for the
latter’s accommodation of a loan. The meeting was interrupted by an
alarm, that proved only too true, that the socialists had started
a tremendous riot on the East side, and that fire, incendiary in
origin, and attributed to them, had broken out in several quarters.
Your lecture hall, Helen, where you have attempted your propaganda of
the Divine Mission of Wealth, is burned down, and those scoundrels
of The Beehive have doubtless had a hand in it. It was a compliment
gratuitously offered to yourself, but I think it has in it the darker
meaning of a menace. Come to the porch and see the signs of the
Future.”
It was Theodore Lorimer, Helen’s uncle, who spoke, and the company,
quickly assenting to this invitation hastened down the steps, and
moved out upon the front terrace, lit by the electric globes upon
their pillars. From this point an actual fire could not be descried,
but the skies south and east beyond the intervening ridges were
plainly illuminated, the light rising and falling, and at its highest
intensity, as it scored the low lying banks of clouds with reflected
flashes, it revealed the summits of high buildings that momentarily
spanned the firelight beyond them with black columns.
Theodore Lorimer led the company to the railing of the enclosure, and
it so happened that the Professor found himself standing beside Miss
Lorimer, between two of the marble pillars. Her face was discernible
and it bore the marks of a kind of subdued anguish. She looked at him
and pointed to the horizon growing more and more lurid; “Are these
lights indeed signs of the Future as my uncle has said?”
Something intensely tender burned in the Professor’s eyes as he
answered softly; “Miss Lorimer I do not know—but when the Pope comes
we shall see whether they go out or whether they burn higher.”
“Ah!” answered Miss Lorimer, “You mock us,” and she came closer to
him with her hands clasped.
“Mockery!” he rejoined, “Mockery! Surely mockery ill suits one who
may become a supplicant, perhaps a penitant,” and the professor’s
voice had a rueful accent, and his face looked at hers with ever
so slight a glance of passion, from which she turned away with the
faintest possible sigh of disappointment.