|Throughout the meal that followed, I carefully observed Fairchild's
bearing toward my niece; and great was my satisfaction to see in it
only and exactly what under the circumstances could rightly have
been expected. Frank, gay, interested, attentive, yet undeviatingly
courteous, respectful, and even deferential, it was precisely the
bearing due from a young gentleman of good breeding toward the lady at
whose side he found himself, and whose acquaintance he had but lately
made.
“So that,” I concluded, “of all conceivable theories adequate to account
for his behaviour at first setting eyes upon her, Josephine's is the
farthest-fetched and the least tenable.”
For the matter of that, as I had assured my sister, I was confident that
her own mother, had she been alive, must have failed to identify her,
so essentially was she altered both in expression of countenance and
in apparent age, to say nothing of her totally transformed personality.
That Fair-child did not do so I was certain. His manner exhibited
neither surprise, mystification, curiosity, nor constraint. It would
have required a far cunninger hypocrite than I took him to be, so
effectually to have disguised such emotions, had he really felt them;
and he could not have helped feeling them if, having known the
dead woman, Louise Massarte, he had recognised her in the young and
unsophisticated maiden, Miriam Benary. The right theory by which to
explain his conduct at first meeting her, I purposed discovering, if I
could, when he and I were alone.
He and Miriam had a deal of fun together making the salad, in which
enterprise they collaborated--not, however, without much laughing
difference as to the best method of procedure. He pretended that,
instead of rubbing the bowl with garlic, one should introduce a
_chapon_--or crust of bread discreetly tinctured with that herb--and
“fatigue” it with the lettuce: whereas our niece vigorously maintained
the contrary. And finally they drew lots to determine which policy
should prevail, Miriam winning.
“I am defeated but not disheartened,” Fair-child declared. “If there is
anything upon which I pride myself, Miss Benary, it is my erudition in
the science, and my dexterity in the art, of gastronomy. You have taken
it out of my power to display my skill in salad-making; but now, if you
are a generous victor, you will give me an opportunity to distinguish
myself in the confection of an omelet. It is an omelet of my own
invention, a sort of cross between the ordinary _omelette-au-vin_ of
the French and the Italian _zabaiano_, I shall require the use of that
chafing dish and spirit-lamp which I see yonder on the sideboard, the
sherry decanter, and half a dozen eggs. I can promise your palates
a delectable experience; and you, Miss Denary, by watching me, will
acquire an invaluable talent.”
So, with much merriment, he proceeded with the manufacture of his
omelet, Miriam observing and assisting. When it was complete, we
unanimously voted it the most delicious thing in the way of an omelet
that we had ever tasted. But Miriam sighed, and said, “It is all very
simple except the most important point. The way is toss it up into the
air, and make it turn over, and then catch it again as it descends--I am
sure I shall never be able to do that.”
“Never? That is a long word. You must practise it with beans,” said
Fairchild. “A pint of beans--dry beans--the kind Bostonians use for
baking. Three hours daily practice for six months, and you will do it
almost as easily as I do.”
After the fruit the ladies left us; and having filled our glasses and
lighted our cigars, we sipped and smoked for a few minutes without
speaking. Fairchild was the first to break the silence.
“I can do nothing,” he began, “but congratulate myself upon the happy
chance--if chance it was, and not a kind Providence--that brought about
our encounter this morning. For once in my life I was in luck.”
“It seems to me,” I replied, “that it is I who was in luck, and who have
the best occasion for self-gratulation.”
“That would depend upon the dubious question of the value of life,” said
he. “Has it ever struck you that this earth of ours is, after all, only
a huge grave-yard, a colossal burying-ground; and that we living persons
are simply waiting about--standing in a long _queue_, so to speak--till
our turn comes to be interred? That seems to me a very pleasing fancy,
and one which, considered as an hypothesis, clarifies many obscure
things. Accepting it, we cease to wonder at the phenomenon of death,
and regard it as the chief end, aim, object, and purpose of all human
life--the consummation devoutly to be wished, which we are all attending
with greater or less impatience. Anyhow, I am sceptical whether we
confer a boon or inflict a bane upon the human being whom we bring into
existence, or whose exit therefrom we prevent. It is indeed probable
that, except for our casual meeting this morning, you would at the
present hour have been numbered among the honoured dead. But, very
likely--either enjoying the excitements of the happy hunting-ground or
sleeping the deep sleep of annihilation--very likely, I say, you would
have been better off than you are actually, or can ever hope to be in
the flesh. About my good fortune, contrariwise, debate is inadmissible.
Here I am in veritable clover-smoking a capital cigar after a capital
dinner, in capital company, to the accompaniment of a capital glass of
wine, and the richer by the acquisition of three new friends--for as
friends, I trust, I may be allowed to reckon you and your ladies. Had
we not happened to run across each other in the way we did, on the other
hand, I should now have been seated alone by my bachelor's hearth, with
no companions more congenial to me than my plaster casts, and no voice
more jovial to cheer my solitude than the howling of the gale.”
“It is very flattering of you to put the matter as you do,” said I;
“but being modish in no respect, I am least of all so in my metaphysics.
Therefore I cannot share your pessimistic doubt of the value of life;
and I assure you I should have hated bitterly to leave mine behind me
in that ungodly snowbank. It is true, I am perilously close to the
Scriptural limitation of man's age; and I ought perhaps to feel that
I have had my fit and proper share of this world's vanities, and to be
prepared for my inevitable journey to the next. But, I must confess, I
am so little of a philosopher, I should dearly like to tarry here a
few years longer; and hence, I maintain, my obligation to you is
indisputably established.”
“Well, then, so far as I can see, we may say measure for measure; and
consider ourselves quit.”
“Hardly. The balance is still tremendously in your favour.”
After that we again smoked for a while without speaking. Then again
Fairchild broke the silence.
“I wonder whether you would take it amiss, Dr. Benary, if I should
mention something which has been the object of my delighted admiration
almost from the moment I entered your house?”
“Ah! What is that?” I queried.
“I fear you will condemn me as overbold if I answer you candidly; but I
shall do so, and accept the consequences. The circumstance that I am an
artist may be pleaded in my behalf, if I seem to transcend the bounds of
the conventional.”
“You pique my curiosity. What is it that you allude to? I do not think
you need be apprehensive of my wrath. My extended 'Life of Sir Joshua'?
That is the fruit of ten years' hard labour. Or my Japanese woman by
Theodore Wores? It's a wonderful piece of flesh-painting. It looks as
though it would bleed if you pricked it” *
“Yes, it is in Worcs's best vein. But that is not what I have in mind.
Neither is the 'Life of Sir Joshua.' which, by-the-bye, I have not
seen.”
* The Editor of this work must disclaim all responsibility
Dr. Benary's opinions upon matters literary and aesthetic.
“Not seen it? Oh, well, I must show it to you directly we go upstairs.
It's my particular pet and pride. But what, then? I do not know what
else I have worthy of such admiration as you profess.”
“You have--if you will tolerate my saying so--you have a niece; and I
allude to her extraordinary beauty.”
My pulse quickened. Here had he, of his own accord, broached that very
topic upon which I was anxious to sound him.
“Ah, yes; Miriam,” I assented, a trifle nervously, and wondering what
would come next. “Miriam. Yes, Miriam is a very pretty girl.”
“Pretty!” echoed he. “Pretty? Why, sir, she's---- why, in all my life
I've not seen so beautiful a woman. And it isn't simply that she is so
beautiful; it's her type. Her type--I believe I am conservative when I
call it the least frequent, the rarest, in the whole range of womanhood.
Forgive my fervour: I speak in my professional capacity--as an artist,
as one to whom the beautiful is the subject-matter of his daily studies.
It is a type of which you occasionally see a perfect specimen in antique
marble, but in flesh and blood not oftener than once in a lifetime.
To say nothing of her colouring, which a painter would go mad over,
consider the sheer planes and lines of her countenance! That magnificent
sweep of profile--brow, nose, lips, chin, and throat, described by one
splendid flowing line! It's unutterable. It's Juno-esque. It's worth
ten years of commonplaceness to have lived to see it in a veritable
breathing woman.''
“Yes,” I admitted, “it's a fine profile--a noble face.”
“Her type is so rare,” he went on, “that, as I have said, Nature
succeeds in producing a perfect specimen of it scarcely oftener than
once in a generation. Of faulty specimens--comparable, from a sculptor's
point of view, to flawed castings--she turns out many every year. You
have been in Provence? In the Noonday of France? Arles, Tours, Avignon,
teem with such failures--women who approach, approach, approach, but
always fall short of, the perfection that your niece embodies.”
“Yes, I know the Méridionales, and I see the resemblance that you refer
to. But, as you intimate, they are coarse and crude copies of Miriam.
That expression of high spirituality, which is the dominant note in her
face, is usually quite absent from theirs.”
“They compare to her as the pressed terracotta effigies of the Venus
of Milo, which may be bought for a song in the streets, compare to the
chiselled marble in the Louvre. In all my life I have never known but
one woman who could properly be mentioned in the same breath with her.
And even she was a good distance behind. Of her I happened to see just
enough to perceive the divine potentiality of the type. Ever since,
I have been watching for a faultless specimen. And to-day, when Miss
Benary came into the room where you had left me, I declare for a moment
my breath was taken away. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Such beauty
seemed beyond reality; it was like a dream come true. In my admiration
I forgot my manners: it was some seconds before I remembered to make my
bow. The point of all which is that when our friendship is older, you,
Dr. Benary, must permit _me_ to model her portrait.”
Thus was my mind set at ease.
Presently we rejoined the ladies, and while Fairchild and Miriam chatted
together in the bow window, I drew Josephine aside, and communicated to
her the upshot of our post-prandial conversation. She breathed a mighty
sigh, and professed herself to be enormously relieved.