preferred to walk. He drove off, and did not see her for ten days.
Then he came upon her again and again in the Doria gallery. He was fond
of the Doria, and often went there, but he had no expectation of meeting
Miss Macks this time; he fancied that she followed a system, going
through her list of galleries in regular order, one by one, and in that
case she would hardly have reached the Doria on a second round. Her list
was a liberal one; it included twenty. Noel had supposed that there were
but nine in Rome.
This time she did not see him; she had some sheets of manuscript in her
hand, and was alternately reading from them and looking at one of the
pictures. She was much absorbed. After a while he went up.
"Good-morning, Miss Macks."
She started; her face changed, and the color rose. She was as delighted
as before. She immediately showed him her manuscript. There he beheld,
written out in her clear handwriting, all he had said of the Doria
pictures, page after page of it; she had actually reproduced from memory
his entire discourse of an hour.
There were two blank spaces left.
"There, I could not exactly remember," said Miss Macks, apologetically.
"If you would tell me, I should be so glad; then it would be quite
complete."
"I shall never speak again. I am frightened," said Noel. He had taken
the manuscript, and was looking it over with inward wonder.
"Oh, please do."
"Why do you care for my opinions, Miss Macks, when you do not agree with
them?" he asked, his eyes still on the pages.
"You said you would call me Faith. Why do I care? Because they are
yours, of course."
"Then you think I know?"
"I am sure you do."
"But it follows, then, that you do not."
"Yes; and there is where my work comes in; I have got to study up to
you. I am afraid it will take a long time, won't it?"
"That depends upon you. It would take very little if you would simply
accept noncombatively."
"Without being convinced? That I could never do."
"You want to be convinced against your will?"
"No; my will itself must be convinced to its lowest depths."
"This manuscript won't help you."
"Indeed, it has helped me greatly already. I have been here twice with
it. I wrote it out the evening after I saw you. I only wish I had one
for each of the galleries! But I feel differently now about asking you
to go."
"I told you you would desert me."
"No, it is not that. But Mr. Jackson says you are much taken up with the
fashionable society here, and that I must not expect you to give me so
much of your time as I had hoped for. He says, too, that your art
articles will do me quite as much good as you yourself, and more;
because you have a way, he says, like all society men, of talking as if
you had no real convictions at all, and that would unsettle me."
"Jackson is an excellent fellow," replied Noel; "I like him extremely.
And when would you like to go to the Borghese?"
"Oh, will you take me?" she said, joyfully. "Any time. To-morrow."
"Perhaps Mrs.--your mother, will go, also," he suggested, still unable
to recall the name; he could think of nothing but "stirrup," and of
course it was not that.
"I don't believe she would care about it," answered the daughter.
"She might. You know we make more of mothers here than we do in
America," he ventured to remark.
"That is impossible," said Miss Macks, calmly. Evidently she thought his
remark frivolous.
He abandoned the subject, and did not take it up again. It was not his
duty to instruct Miss Macks in foreign customs. In addition, she was not
only not "in society," but she was an art student, and art students had,
or took, privileges of their own in Rome.
"At what hour shall I come for you?" he said.
"It will be out of your way to come for me; I will meet you at the
gallery," she answered, radiant at the prospect.
He hesitated, then accepted her arrangement of things. He would take her
way, not his own. The next morning he went to the Borghese Palace ten
minutes before the appointed time. But she was already there.
"Mother thought she would not come out--the galleries tire her so," she
said; "but she was pleased to be remembered."
They spent an hour and a half among the pictures. She listened to all he
said with the same earnest attention.
Within the next five weeks Raymond Noel met Miss Macks at other
galleries. It was always very business-like--they talked of nothing but
the pictures; in truth, her systematic industry kept him strictly down
to the subject in hand. He learned that she made the same manuscript
copies of all he said, and, when he was not with her, she went alone,
armed with these documents, and worked hard. Her memory was remarkable;
she soon knew the names and the order of all the pictures in all the
galleries, and had made herself acquainted with an outline, at least, of
the lives of all the artists who had painted them. During this time she
was, of course, going on with her lessons; but as he had not been again
to see Jackson, or to the street of the Hyacinth, he knew nothing of her
progress. He did not want to know; she was in Jackson's hands, and
Jackson was quite competent to attend to her.
In these five weeks he gave to Miss Macks only the odd hours of his
leisure. He made her no promises; but when he found that he should have
a morning or half-morning unoccupied, he sent a note to the street of
the Hyacinth, naming a gallery and an hour. She was always promptly
there, and so pleased, that there was a sort of fresh aroma floating
through the time he spent with her, after all--but a mild one.
To give the proper position to the place the young art student's light
figure occupied on the canvas of Raymond Noel's winter, it should be
mentioned that he was much interested in a French lady who was spending
some months in Rome. He had known her and admired her for a long time;
but this winter he was seeing more of her, some barriers which had
heretofore stood in the way being down. Madame B---- was a charming
product of the effects of finished cultivation and fashionable life upon
a natural foundation of grace, wit, and beauty of the French kind. She
was not artificial, because she was art itself. Real art is as real as
real nature is natural. Raymond Noel had a highly artistic nature. He
admired art. This did not prevent him from taking up occasionally, as a
contrast to this lady, the society of the young girl he called "Faith."
Most men of imagination, artistic or not, do the same thing once in a
while; it seems a necessity. With Noel it was not the contrast alone.
The French lady led him an uneasy life, and now and then he took an hour
of Faith, as a gentle soothing draught of safe quality. She believed in
him so perfectly! Now Madame appeared to believe in him not at all.
It must be added that, in his conversations with Miss Macks, he had
dropped entirely even the very small amount of conventional gallantry
that he had bestowed upon her in the beginning. He talked to her not as
though she was a boy exactly, or an old woman, but as though he himself
was a relative of mature age--say an uncle of benevolent disposition and
a taste for art.
February gave way to March. And now, owing to a new position of his own
affairs, Noel saw no more of Faith Macks. She had been a contrast, and
he did not now wish for a contrast or a soothing draught, and a soothing
draught was not at present required. He simply forgot all about her.
In April he decided rather suddenly to leave Rome. This was because
Madame B---- had gone to Paris, and had not forbidden her American
suitor to follow her a few days later. He made his preparations for
departure, and these, of course, included farewell calls. Then he
remembered Faith Macks; he had not seen her for six weeks. He drove to
the street of the Hyacinth, and went up the dark stairs. Miss Macks was
at home, and came in without delay; apparently, in her trim neatness,
she was always ready for visitors.
She was very glad to see him; but did not, as he expected, ask why he
had not come before. This he thought a great advance; evidently she was
learning. When she heard that he had come to say good-bye her face fell.
"I am so very sorry; please sit as long as you can, then," she said,
simply. "I suppose it will be six months before I see you again; you
will hardly return to Rome before October." That he would come at that
time she did not question.
"My plans are uncertain," replied Noel. "But probably I shall come back.
One always comes back to Rome. And you--where do you go? To
Switzerland?"
"Why--we go nowhere, of course; we stay here. That is what we came for,
and we are all settled."
He made some allusion to the heat and unhealthiness.
"I am not afraid," replied Miss Macks. "Plenty of people stay; Mr.
Jackson says so. It is only the rich who go away, and we are not rich.
We have been through hot summers in Tuscolee, I can tell you!" Then,
without asking leave this time, as if she was determined to have an
opinion from him before he departed, she took from a portfolio some of
the work she had done under Mr. Jackson's instruction.
Noel saw at once that the Englishman had not kept his word. He had not
put her back upon the alphabet, or, if he had done so, he had soon
released her, and allowed her to pursue her own way again. The original
faults were as marked as ever. In his opinion all was essentially bad.
He looked in silence. But she talked on hopefully, explaining,
comparing, pointing out.
"What does Mr. Jackson think of this?" he said, selecting the one he
thought the worst.
"He admires the idea greatly; he thinks it very original. He says that
my strongest point is originality," she answered, with her confident
frankness.
"He means--ah--originality of subject?"
"Oh yes; my execution is not much yet. But that will come in time. Of
course, the subject, the idea, is the important thing; the execution is
secondary." Here she paused; something seemed to come into her mind. "I
know _you_ do not think so," she added, thoughtfully, "because, you
know, you said"--and here she quoted a page from one of his art
articles with her clear accuracy. "I have never understood what you
meant by that, Mr. Noel; or why you wrote it."
She looked at him questioningly. He did not reply; his eyes were upon
one of the sketches.
"It would be dreadful for me if you were right!" she added, with slow
conviction.
"I thought you believed that I was always right," he said, smiling, as
he placed the sketches on the table.
But she remained very serious.
"You are--in everything but that."
He made some unimportant reply, and turned the conversation. But she
came back to it.
"It would be dreadful," she repeated, earnestly, with the utmost gravity
in her gray eyes.
"I hope the long summer will not tire you," he answered, irrelevantly.
"Shall I not have the pleasure of saying good-bye--although that, of
course, is not a pleasure--to Mrs.--to your mother?"
He should have made the speech in any case, as it was the proper one to
make; but as he sat there he had thought that he really would like to
have a look at the one guardian this young girl was to have during her
long, lonely summer in Rome.
"I will tell her. Perhaps when she hears that you are going away she
will feel like coming in," said Miss Macks.
She came back after some delay, and with her appeared a matron of
noticeable aspect.
"My mother," she said, introducing her (evidently Noel was never to get
the name); "this is Mr. Noel, mother."
"And very glad I am to see you, sir, I'm sure," said Mrs. Spurr,
extending her hand with much cordiality. "I said to Ettie that I'd come
in, seeing as 'twas you, though I don't often see strangers nowadays on
account of poor health for a long time past; rheumatism and asthma. But
I feel beholden to you, Mr. No-ul, because you've been so good to Ettie.
You've been real kind."
Ettie's mother was a very portly matron of fifty-five, with a broad
face, indistinct features, very high color, and a breathless, panting
voice. Her high color--it really was her most noticeable feature--was
surmounted by an imposing cap, adorned with large bows of scarlet
ribbon; a worsted shawl, of the hue known as "solferino," decked her
shoulders; under her low-necked collar reposed a bright blue necktie,
its ends embroidered in red and yellow; and her gown was of a vivid dark
green. But although her colors swore at each other, she seemed amiable.
She was also voluble.
Noel, while shaking hands, was considering, mentally, with some
retrospective amusement, his condition of mind if this lady had accepted
his invitations to visit the galleries.
"You must sit down, mother," said Miss Macks, bringing forward an
easy-chair. "She has not been so well as usual, lately," she said,
explanatorily, to Noel, as she stood for a moment beside her mother's
chair.
"It's this queer Eye-talian air," said Mrs. Spurr. "You see I ain't used
to it. Not but what I ain't glad to be here on Ettie's account--real
glad. It's just what she needs and oughter have."
The girl put her hand on her mother's shoulder with a little caressing
touch. Then she left the room.
"Yes, I do feel beholden to you, Mr. No-ul. But, then, she'll be a
credit to you, to whatever you've done for her," said Mrs. Spurr, when
they were left alone. "Her talunts are very remarkable. She was the head
scholar of the Young Ladies' Seminary through four whole years, and all
the teachers took a lot of pride in her. And then her paintings, too!
I'm sorry you're going off so soon. You see, she sorter depends upon
your opinion."
Noel felt a little stir at the edges of his conscience; he knew
perfectly that his opinion was that Miss Macks, as an artist, would
never do anything worth the materials she used.
"I leave her in good hands," he said.
After all, it was Jackson's responsibility, not his.
"Yes, Mr. Jackson thinks a deal of her. I can see that plain!" answered
Mrs. Spurr, proudly.
Here the daughter returned, bringing a little note-book and pencil.
"Do you know what these are for?" she said. "I want you to write down a
list of the best books for me to read this summer, while you are gone. I
am going to work hard; but if I have books, too, the time won't seem so
long."
Noel considered a moment. In one way her affairs were certainly none of
his business; in another way they were, because she had thrust them upon
him.
"I will not give you a list, Miss Macks; probably you would not be able
to find the books here. But I will send you, from Paris or London, some
things that are rather good, if you will permit me to do so."
She said he was very kind. Her face brightened.
"If she has appreciation enough to comprehend what I send her," he
thought, "perhaps in the end she will have a different opinion about my
'kindness'!"
Soon afterwards he took leave. The next day he went to Paris.
II
The events of Raymond Noel's life, after he left Rome that spring, were
various. Some were pleasant, some unpleasant; several were quite
unexpected. Their combinations and results kept him from returning to
Italy the following winter, and the winter after that he spent in Egypt.
When he again beheld the dome of St. Peter's he remembered that it
lacked but a month of two full years since he had said good-bye to it;
it was then April, and now it was March. He established himself in some
pleasant rooms, looked about him, and then began to take up, one by one,
the old threads of his Roman life--such, at least, as remained unbroken.
He found a good many. Threads do not break in Rome. He had once said
himself that the air was so soft and historic that nothing broke
there--not even hearts. But this was only one of his little speeches. In
reality he did not believe much in the breaking of hearts; he had seen
them stretch so!
It may be said with truth that Noel had not thought of Miss Macks for
months. This was because he had had other things to think of. He had
sent her the books from Paris, with an accompanying note, a charming
little note--which gave no address for reply. Since then his mind had
been otherwise occupied. But as he never entirely forgot anything that
had once interested him, even although but slightly (this was in
reality a system of his; it gave him many holds on life, and kept
stored up a large supply of resources ready for use when wanted), he
came, after a while, on the canvas of his Roman impressions, to the
figure of Miss Macks. When he came to it he went to see her; that is, he
went to the street of the Hyacinth.
Of course, she might not be there; a hundred things might have happened
to her. He could have hunted up Horace Jackson; but, on the whole, he
rather preferred to see the girl herself first--that is, if she was
there. Mrs. Lawrence, the only person among his acquaintances who had
known her, was not in Rome. Reaching the street of the Hyacinth, he
interrogated the old woman who acted as portress at the lower door,
keeping up at the same time a small commerce in fritters; yes, the
Americans were still on the fourth floor. He ascended the dark stairway.
The confiding little "Ettie" card was no longer upon the door. In its
place was a small framed sign: "Miss Macks' School."
This told a story!
However, he rang. It was the same shrill, ill-tempered little bell, and
when the door opened it was Miss Macks herself who opened it. She was
much changed.
The parlor had been turned into a school-room--at present empty of
pupils. But even as a school-room it was more attractive than it had
been before. He took a seat, and spoke the usual phrases of a renewal of
acquaintance with his accustomed ease and courtesy; Miss Macks responded
briefly. She said that her mother was not very well; she herself quite
well. No, they had not left Italy, nor indeed the neighborhood of Rome;
they had been a while at Albano.
The expression of her face had greatly altered. The old direct, wide
glance was gone; gone also what he had called her over-confidence; she
looked much older. On the other hand, there was more grace in her
bearing, more comprehension of life in her voice and eyes. She was
dressed as plainly as before; but everything, including the arrangement
of her hair, was in the prevalent style.
She did not speak of her school, and therefore he did not. But after a
while he asked how the painting came on. Her face changed a little; but
it was more in the direction of a greater calm than hesitation or
emotion.
"I am not painting now," she answered.
"You have given it up temporarily?"
"Permanently."
"Ah--isn't that rather a pity?"
She looked at him, and a gleam of scorn filtered into the glance.
"You know it is not a pity," she said.
He was a little disgusted at the scorn. Of course, the only ground for
him to take was the ground upon which she stood when he last saw her; at
that time she proposed to pass her life in painting, and it was but good
manners for him to accept her intentions as she had presented them.
"I never assumed to be a judge, you know," he answered. "When I last had
the pleasure of seeing you, painting was, you remember, your cherished
occupation!"
"When you last had the pleasure of seeing me, Mr. Noel," said Miss
Macks, still with unmoved calm, "I was a fool."
Did she wish to go into the subject at length? Or was that merely an
exclamation?
"When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you were taking lessons of
Mr. Jackson," he said, to give a practical turn to the conversation. "Is
he still here? How is he?"
"He is very well, now. He is dead."
(She was going to be dramatic then, in any case.)
He expressed his regret, and it was a sincere one; he had always liked
and respected the honest, morose Englishman. He asked a question or two.
Miss Macks replied that he had died here in the street of the
Hyacinth--in the next room. He had fallen ill during the autumn
following Noel's departure, and when his illness grew serious, they--her
mother and herself--had persuaded him to come to them. He had lived a
month longer, and died peacefully on Christmas Eve.
"He was one of the most honest men I ever knew," said Noel. Then, as she
did not reply, he ventured this: "That was the reason I recommended him
when you asked me to select a teacher for you."
"Your plan was made useless by an unfortunate circumstance," she
answered, with an evident effort.
"A circumstance?"
"Yes; he fell in love with me. If I did not consider his pure, deep, and
devoted affection the greatest honor of my life I would not mention it.
I tell you because it will explain to you his course."
"Yes, it explains," said Noel. As he spoke there came across him a
realization of the whole of the strength of the love such a man as
Horace Jackson would feel, and the way in which it would influence him.
Of course, he saw to the full the imperfection of her work, the utter
lack of the artist's conception, the artist's eye and touch; but
probably he had loved her from the beginning, and had gone on hoping to
win her love in return. She was not removed from him by any distance;
she was young, but she was also poor, friendless, and alone. When she
was his wife he would tell her the truth, and in the greatness of his
love the revelation would be naught. "He was a good man," he said. "He
was always lonely. I am glad that at last he was with your mother and
you."
"His goodness was simply unbounded. If he had lived he would have
remained always a faithful, kind, and respectful son to my dear mother.
That, of course, would have been everything to me." She said this
quietly, yet her tone seemed to hold intention.
For a moment he thought that perhaps she had married the Englishman, and
was now his widow. The sign on the door bore her maiden name, but that
might have been an earlier venture.
"Had you opened your school at that time?" he asked. "I may speak of it,
since, of course, I saw the sign upon the door."
"Not until two months later; I had the sign made then. But it was of
little use; day-schools do not prosper in Rome; they are not the custom.
I have a small class twice a week, but I live by going out as
day-governess. I have a number of pupils of that kind; I have been very
successful. The old Roman families have a fancy for English-speaking
governesses, you know. Last summer I was with the Princess C----, at
Albano; her children are my pupils."
"Her villa is a delightful one," said Noel; "you must have enjoyed
that."
"I don't know that I enjoyed, but I learned. I have learned a great
deal in many ways since I saw you last, Mr. Noel. I have grown very
old."
"As you were especially young when you saw me last it does not matter
much," he answered, smiling.
"Yes, I was especially young." She looked at him soberly. "I do not feel
bitterly towards you," she continued. "Strange! I thought I should. But
now that I see you in person it comes over me that, probably, you did
not intend to deceive me; that not only you tried to set me right by
selecting Mr. Jackson as my teacher, but again you tried when you sent
me those books. It was not much to do! But knowing the world as I now
know it, I see that it was all that could have been expected. At first,
however, I did not see this. After I went to Mr. Bellot, and, later, to
Mr. Salviati, there were months when I felt very bitterly towards you.
My hopes were false ones, and had been so from the beginning; you knew
that they were, yet you did not set me right."
"I might have done more than I did," answered Noel. "I have a habit of
not assuming responsibility; I suppose I have grown selfish. But if you
went to Bellot, then it was not Jackson who told you?"
"He intimated something when he asked me to marry him; after that his
illness came on, and we did not speak of it again. But I did not believe
him. I was very obstinate. I went to Mr. Bellot the 1st of January; I
wished him to take me as pupil. In answer he told me that I had not a
particle of talent; that all my work was insufferably bad; that I better
throw away my brushes and take in sewing."
"Bellot is always a brute!" said Noel.
"If he told the truth brutally, it was still the truth; and it was the
truth I needed. But even then I was not convinced, and I went to Mr.
Salviati. He was more gentle; he explained to me my lacks; but his
judgment was the same. I came home; it was the 10th of January, a
beautiful Roman winter day. I left my pictures, went over to St.
Peter's, and walked there under its bright mosaics all the afternoon.
The next day I had advertisements of a day-school placed at the bankers'
and in the newspapers. I thought that I could teach better than I could
sew." All this she said with perfect calm.