Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his play under his arm and

hope in his heart. Antony had not been sorry to find himself alone. When

he was not with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets.

At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one when at two

o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning out of the window, watch

the dawn come up over the Louvre, over the river and the quays. His

easels, his tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled down

upon them. His part of the big room had fallen into disuse. In the

salons of Mary Faversham nothing seemed important but the possession of

riches; they talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no

one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there, but the makers of

them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang

there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown

accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few

belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled

him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a

beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in

his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a

step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been

precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses

had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible,

degrading, sickening.

He threw open wide the window and let in the May sunlight, and the noise

of the streets came with it. Below his window paused the "goat's

milkman," calling sweetly on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the

valley; there was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet,

and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar impersonality of the

few of the big city, the passing of the anonymous throng, had a soothing

effect upon him. The river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on

which great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax drew a

long breath and turned to the studio, put on his old corduroy clothes,

filled himself a pipe, and uncovered one of his statues in the corner,

and with his tools in his hand took his position before his discarded

work.

This study had not struck him as being successful when he had thrown the

cloth over it in February, when he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de

Boulogne. Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the piece of

work struck his critical sense with its several qualities of merit. He

was too real an artist not to see its value and to judge it. Was it

possible that he had created that charming thing--had there been in him

sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was impossible for

Antony to put himself in the frame of mind in which he had been before

he left his work; in vain he tried to bring back the old inspiration of

feeling. The work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He was

jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short a time a useless

man? He should have been gaining in experience. A man is all the richer

for being in love and being loved. The image of Mary would not come to

him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her surrounded by people

and things. Evidently his love had not inspired him, nor did luxury and

the intercourse with worldly people. He had been the day before with

Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated painter's work, the

fruits of four years of labour. The artist himself, frightfully obese,

smiling and self-satisfied, stood surrounded by his canvases. None of

the paintings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works--not

one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student say, "B---- used to paint

with his soul before he was rich, now he paints with his stomach." The

marks of the beast had stamped out the divine seal.

As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had

half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully

rich as to imperil my soul."

In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a

happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful

woman with several millions of dollars. "Damn money," he muttered as he

worked, and, after a little, "Damn poverty," he murmured. What was it,

then, he could bless? In his present point of view nothing seemed

blessed. He was working savagely and heavily, but hungrily too, as

though he besought his hands to find again for him the sacred touch that

should electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to send its

enlightened message to his hand, or as though he called on his emotion

to warm his hardened heart--a combination which he believed was needful

to work and art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him a

letter.

It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, holding it up to the

fading light. As he saw Dearborn's handwriting he realized that he

missed his companion, and also realized the strong link between them

which is so defined between those who work at a kindred art.

"Dear old man,"--the letter was dated London--"I am sky-high in a room

for which I pay a shilling a night. A thing in the roof is called a

window. Through it I see a field of pots--not flower-pots, but

chimney-pots--and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke of

endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every blessed thing in

this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey cloth, once meant to be white.

Other lodgers have left burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers

have long since been put out by the soot. Out of this hole in the roof I

see London, the sky-line of London in a spring sky. There is a singular

sort of beauty in this sky, as if it had trailed its cerulean mantle

over fields of English bluebells. For another shilling I dine; for

another I lunch. I skip breakfast. I calculate I can stay here ten days,

then the shillings will be all gone, Tony. In these ten days, old man, I

shall sell my play. I am writing you this on the window-sill; without is

the mutter of soft thunder of London--the very word London thrills me to

the marrow. Such great things have come out of London--such prose--such

verse--such immortality!

"To-day I passed 'Jo,' Dickens's street-sweeper, in Dickens's 'Bleak

House.' I felt like saying to him, 'I am as poor as you are, Jo,

to-day,' but I remembered there were a few shillings between us.

"Well, old man, as I sit here I seem to have risen high above the

roof-tops and to look down on the struggle in this great vortex of life,

and here and there a man goes amongst them all, carrying a wreath of

laurel. Tony, my eyes are upon him! Call me a fool if you will, call me

mad; at any rate I have faith. I know I will succeed. Something tells me

I will stand before the curtain when they call my name. It is growing

late. I must go out and forage for food ... Tony. I kiss the hand of the

beautiful Mrs. Faversham."

Antony turned the pages between his fingers. The reading of the letter

had smoothed the creases from his brow. He sighed as he lifted his head

to say "Come in," for some one had knocked timidly at the door.

"Hello!" Fairfax said, and now that they were alone he called her "Aunt

Caroline."

Madame Potowski came forward and kissed him.

He drew a big chair into the window. He was always solicitous of her and

a little pitiful.

Madame Potowski's hair had been soft brown once; it was golden, frankly

so, now, and her fine lips were a little rouged. In her dress of

changeable silk, her cape of tulle, her hat with a bunch of roses, her

tiny gloved hands, she was a very elegant little lady. She rested her

hands on her parasol and had suggested his mother to Antony. Then, as

that resemblance passed, came the fleeting suggestion which he never

cared to hold--of Bella.

"I have come, my dear Tony, to see you. I wanted to see you alone."

Tony lit a cigar and sat by her side. The Comtesse Potowski had a little

diamond watch with a chain on her breast. Outside the clock struck five.

"I have only a second to stay--my husband misses me if I am five minutes

out of his sight."

"I do not wonder, Aunt Caroline."

"Isn't it all strange, Tony," she asked, "how very far up we have come?"

He shook the ashes off his cigar. "Well, I don't feel myself very far

up, Aunt Caroline."

"My dear Tony, aren't you going to marry an immense fortune?"

"Is that what people say, Aunt Caroline?"

"You are going to do a very brilliant thing, Tony."

"Is that what you call going very far up?"

His aunt shook her pretty head. "Money is the greatest power in the

world, dear boy. Art is very well, but there is nothing in the wide

world like an income, dear."

Her nephew stirred in his chair. Caroline Potowski looked down at her

little diamond watch, her dress shining like a bunch of many-hued roses.

Antony knew that her husband was rich; he also made a good income from

his singing and she must have made not an inconsiderable fortune.

"What are you thinking about?" said his aunt later, her hand on his own.

"You have shown great wisdom, great worldly wisdom."

"My God!" exclaimed her nephew between his teeth.

If Madame Potowski heard this exclamation, it was not tragic to her. She

lowered her tone, although there was no one to hear them.

"Tony, I am very anxious about money."

Her nephew laughed aloud. In spite of himself there came over him in a

flash the memory of the day nearly ten years ago when she sat on the

side of his miserable little bed in his miserable little room in New

York and took from him as a loan--which she never meant to pay back--all

the money he had in the world. He put his hands in his pockets.

"Has your husband any financial difficulties?"

"My husband knows nothing about it," she said serenely. "You don't

suppose I could tell him, do you? I must have five thousand francs, dear

Tony, before to-morrow."

Tony said lightly, "I am afraid economy is not your strong point."

"Tony," she exclaimed reproachfully, "I am a wonderful manager; I can

make a franc go further than my husband can a louis, and I have a real

gift for bargains. Think of it! I only had one hundred dollars a month

to dress myself and Bella and poor little Gardiner, and for all my

little expenses." The children's names on her lips seemed sacrilege to

him. He did not wish her to speak those sacred names, or destroy his

sacred past, whose charm and tenderness persisted over all the suffering

and which nothing could destroy. "I have been buying a quantity of old

Chinese paintings--a great bargain; in ten years they will be worth

double the money. You must come and see them. The dealer will deliver

them to-morrow."

"History," Antony thought, "how it repeats itself!"

Caroline Potowski leaned toward her nephew persuasively, and even in the

softened twilight he saw the weakness and the caprices of her pretty

face, and he pitied Potowski.

"I must have five thousand francs before to-morrow," said his aunt,

"otherwise these dealers will make me trouble."

Fairfax laughed again. With a touch of bitterness he said--

"And I must have an income of five times as much as that a year--ten

times as much as that a year--unless I wish to feel degraded because I

am a poor labourer."

The comtesse did not reply to this. As she did not, Fairfax saw the

humour of it.

"You do not really think I could give you five thousand francs, auntie?"

"I know you haven't a great deal of money, dear boy----"

"Not a great deal, auntie."

"But you seem to have such a lot of time to spend to amuse yourself."

He nodded. "So I seem to have."

The comtesse looked at him a little askance. "You are going to make such

a brilliant marriage. Mrs. Faversham is so fearfully rich."

Fairfax exclaimed, but shut down on the words that came to his lips. He

realized that his aunt was a toy woman, utterly irresponsible, a pretty

fool. He said simply--

"You had better frankly tell your husband."

She swung her parasol to and fro. "You think so, Tony?"

"Decidedly."

"And you couldn't possibly manage, Tony?"

Tony pointed to his studies. "These are my only assets; these are my

finances, auntie. I shall have to sell something to live on--if I am so

lucky as to be able to find a customer."

"If I could give the dealer a thousand francs to-morrow I think he would

wait," said his aunt.

Tony shook his head. "I wish I were a millionaire for five minutes, Aunt

Caroline."

His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. "I shall have to pawn my watch and

necklace," she said tranquilly. "Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled,

nodding at him, "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on

her when she marries."

A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another heiress!

"They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought after."

Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took a few paces up and down

the room.

"Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked over to the door

and stood with her hand on the knob, "I used to think you were a little

in love with Bella. She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown

up."

Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, "Aunt Caroline, I don't like to re-live the

past!"

"I don't wonder," she murmured quietly; "and you are going to make such

a brilliant marriage."

He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him--like a vampire in

her silks and jewels. Would she ruin her innocent, kindly husband? What

would she do if she could not raise the money? He believed her capable

of anything.

For three days he worked feverishly, and then he wrote to Mrs. Faversham

that he was a little seedy and working, and that as Dearborn was away he

would rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham accepted

his decision and wrote that she was organizing a charity concert for

some fearfully poor people whom the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing;

the comte and comtesse would both sing at the _musicale_, and he must

surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," she wrote, "and

perhaps you may have some little figurine that we could raffle off in

chances."

Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a statuette to be

raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. She was ignorant of any

sense of honour.

* * * * *

When Dearborn came back from London he found Antony working like mad.

Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his hat on top of it,

and extended his hands.

"Empty-handed, Tony!"

But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no expression of

defeat there.

"Which means you left your play in London, Bob."

"Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's and marching him up

and down the studio, "we are going to be very rich."

"Only that," said Tony shortly.

"This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old man!"

Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet out of his pocket,

took from it a sheaf of English notes, which he held up to Fairfax.

"Count it, old chap."

Fairfax shook his head. "No; tell me how much for two years' flesh and

blood and soul--how you worked here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and

suffered!"

"I forget it all," said the playwright quietly; "but it can never be

paid for with such chaff as this,"--he touched the notes. "But the

applause, the people's voices, the tears and laughter, that will pay."

"By heaven!" exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's hand, "I bless you

for saying that!"

Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I care for money?" he said

simply. "I thought you knew me better than that."

Fairfax exclaimed, "Oh, I don't know what I know or think; I am in a bad

dream."

Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is for you and me and

Nora, the bunch, just as long as it lasts."

Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engagement, there had been

a distinct reserve.

Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from Antony's. The two

friends settled themselves comfortably. It was the close of the day.

Without, as usual, rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going

with the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal noise

always made for them an accompaniment not disagreeable. The last light

of the spring day fell on Fairfax's uncovered work, on the damp clay

with the fresh marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a red

scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half curled up on the

divan. The last of the day's light fell too on Dearborn's reddish hair,

on his fine intelligent face. Fairfax said--

"Now tell me everything, Bob, from the beginning, from the window as you

looked over the chimney-pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in

the air--tell me everything, to the last word the manager said."

"Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand. "Nora is coming. I want

to tell it to her as well. No one can tell twice alike the story of his

first success--the first agony of first success." He caught his breath

and struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. "It will be a success,

thank God! There is Nora," and he crossed the studio to let Nora Scarlet

in.

CHAPTER XX

The third day he went up to see her and found her in the garden, a

basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore a garden hat covered with

roses and carried a pair of gilded shears with which to snip her

flowers. As Antony came down the steps of the house she dropped the

scissors into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her cheek to

him.

"You may kiss me, dear," she said; "no one will see us but the flowers

and the birds."

Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though his arms were full

of flowers.

"If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to you. You look well,

Tony," she said. "I don't believe you have been ill at all."

"My work, Mary."

She took his arm and started towards the house. "You must let me come

and see what wonderful things you are doing."

"I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. "It has taken me all

this time to realize I was never a sculptor; I have been so atrociously

idle, Mary."

"But you need rest, my dear Tony."

"I shall not need any rest until I am an old man."

He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They walked past the

flower-beds, and she picked the dead roses, cutting the withered leaves,

and talking to him gaily, telling him all she had done during the days

of their separation, and suddenly he said--

"You do not seem to have missed me."

"Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm.

They walked together slowly to the house, where she left her roses in

the hall and took him into the music-room, where they had been last

when he left her, the afternoon following the luncheon.

"I must impress her indelibly on my mind," Antony thought. "I may never

see her again."

When she had seated herself by the window through which he could see the

roses on the high rose trees and the iron balcony on whose other side

was the rumble of Paris, he stood before her gravely.

"Come and sit beside me," she invited, slowly. "You seem suddenly like a

stranger."

"Mary," he said simply, "the time has come for me to ask you----" The

words stuck in his throat. What in God's name was he going to ask her?

What a fanatic he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts, she

interrupted him.

"I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I have been waiting." She

leaned against him. "You see, I have had the foolish feeling that

perhaps you didn't care as you thought you did. It is that dreadful

difference in our age."

"Do you care, Mary?"

She might have answered him, "Why otherwise should I marry a penniless

man, five years my junior, when the world is before me?"

She said, "Yes, I care deeply."

"Ah," he breathed, "then it is all right, Mary; that is all we need."

After a few seconds he said gently: "Now look at me." Her face was

flushed and her eyes humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one

of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to time touched

it with his lips. "Listen to me; try to understand. I am a Bohemian, an

artist; say that over and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been

ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my soul. This life

here,"--he gestured to the room as though it held a host of

enemies,--"this life here has crushed me. I had begun to think myself a

miserable creature just because I am poor. Now, if money is the only

thing that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable creature, and

then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it is not the only thing,

well then, let us drink the other things to their dregs." She said,

"What other things?"

"Why, the beauty of struggling together with every material

consideration cast out! Think how beautiful it is to work for one you

love; think of the beauty of being all in all to each other, Mary!"

"But we are that, Tony."

Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. "You owe your luxury to

your husband whom you never loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything

more, Mary."

She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in connection with him."

Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I had been selling my

soul," he said passionately. "And what can a man have in exchange for

his soul? Of course, it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you

to marry me."

She put both her hands over his and breathed his name. He spoke

desperately, and the picture rose up before him of his bare studio and

his meagre life.

"Will you marry me now?"

"I said I was quite ready."

"The day will come when I will be rich and great." He paused. He saw

that her eyes were already troubled, and asked eagerly, "You believe

that, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman ashamed. You must wait

for that time with me."

Mary Faversham said quietly, "You have been shutting yourself up with a

lot of fanatical ideas."

He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face became grave.

"Oh," he said, "don't speak--wait. You don't dream what every word you

say is going to mean--wait. You don't understand what I mean!"

And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was about to impose

upon her. If he had been assured of his love for her, assured of her

love for him, he might have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be

talking to her through a veil. He shook his head.

"No, I cannot ask it, Mary."

Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change. It was never lovelier

than now, as with gravity and sweetness she put her arms around his neck

and looked up at him with great tenderness. She said--

"I think I know what you mean. You want me to give up my fortune and go

to you."

She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his worship of her at

this moment increased a thousandfold. He leaned forward and laid his

head against her breast.

In the love of all women there is a strong quality of the maternal. Mary

bent over the blond head and pressed her lips to his hair. When Antony

lifted his face there were tears in his eyes. He cried--

"Heaven bless you, darling! You don't know how high I will take you, how

far I will carry us both. The world shall talk of us! Mary--Mary!"

She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would never be another moment

in her life like this one.

He said, "I will take you to the studio, of course. I haven't told you

that in June I shall have fifty thousand francs, and from then on I will

be succeeding so fast that we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her

faintly smile, and said sharply, "I suppose you spend fifty thousand

francs now on your clothes!"

She said frankly, "And more; but that makes no difference," and

ventured, "You don't seem to think, Tony, what a pleasure it would be to

me to do for you." She paused at his exclamation. "Oh, of course, I

understand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with my fortune,

Tony?"

"This money on which you are living," he said gravely, "that you have

accepted from a man you never loved, give it all to the poor. Keep the

commandment for once, and we will see what the treasures of heaven are

like."

He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was an ardour in the

return of her caress that made him say--

"Mary, don't answer me to-day, please; I want you to think it calmly

over. Just now you have shown me what I wanted to see."

She asked, "What?"

"That you love me."

She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it always?"

Bending over her he said passionately, "I shall believe it when I have

your answer, and you are going to make me divinely happy."

She echoed the word softly, "Happy!" and her lips trembled. Across the

ante-chamber came the sound of voices. Their retreat was about to be

invaded by the people of the world who never very long left Mary

Faversham alone.

"Oh!" she cried, "I cannot see any one. Why did they let any one in?"

And, lifting her face to him, she said in a low tone, "Tony, kiss me

again."

Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who might not, caught her

to him and held her for a second, then crossed the room to the curtained

door and went down the terrace steps and across the garden.

By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, through the long

French windows, he could see the music-room with the palms and gilt

furniture. Mary Faversham was already surrounded by the Comte de B----

and the Baron de F----. He knew them vaguely. Before going to get his

hat and stick from the vestibule, he watched her for a few moments, with

a strange adoration in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up

everything for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could never love

more than at this moment. He believed that he was not asking her to make

a ridiculous sacrifice, but on the contrary to accept a spiritual

gain--a sacrifice of all for love and art and honour, too! As he looked

across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary Faversham. He was

welcomed very cordially. It was Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for

months. Fairfax's heart grew cold.

As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might linger, she came over to

the window and drew down the Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly,

and blotted out the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a

sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, and immediately

he saw himself ridiculous, crude and utterly fantastical in his

ultimatum. The egoism and childishness of what he had done stood out to

him, and in that second he knew that he had lost her--lost her for

ever.

CHAPTER XXI

He did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked for miles. His

unequal, limping strides tired him to death and he was finally the only

wanderer there. Over the exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars

came out at length, and the guardians began to observe him. At eight

o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went into a small restaurant

and made a light meal. For the first time since Albany, when he had

drank too much in despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He

walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang the bell at Mary

Faversham's at nine-thirty in the morning, and the butler, intensely

surprised, informed him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with

Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant more fees that he

could afford. He found a piece of money in his pocket and gave it to

Ferdinand.

"But, monsieur," said the man, embarrassed, and handled the piece. It

was a louis. Antony waved magnificently and started away. He took a cab

back to the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis was his

last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of a profound sleep, in which

the playwright was dreaming of two hundred night performances.

"Bob, can you let me have a few francs?"

"In my vest pocket," said Dearborn. "Take what you like."

Tony paid his cab out of the change and realized that it was some of the

money from Dearborn's advance royalties. It gave him pleasure to think

that he was spending money which had been made by art. It was "serious

money." He did not hesitate to use it. He sat by the table when he came

in from paying his cab and fell into a heavy sleep, his head upon his

arm. Thus the two friends slumbered until noon, Dearborn dreaming of

fame and Antony of despair.

At two o'clock that afternoon, bathed and dressed, himself again save

for a certain bewilderment in his head, he stood in his window looking

out on the quays. Underneath, Nora Scarlet and Dearborn passed

arm-in-arm. They were going to Versailles to talk of love, of fame and

artistic struggle, under the trees. Antony heard the shuffling of his

old concierge on the stairs. He knew that the man was bringing him a

letter and that it would be from Mary.

With the letter between his hands, he waited some few minutes before

opening it. He finally read it, sitting forward on the divan, his face

set.

"DEAREST," it began, and then there was a long space as though the

woman could not bear to write the words, "You will never be able to

judge me fairly. I cannot ask it of you. You are too much of a

genius to understand a mere woman. I am writing you in my boudoir,

just where you came to me that day when you told me your love and

when I wept to hear it, dearest. I shall cry again, thinking of it,

many times. I have done you a great wrong in taking ever so little

of you, and taking even those few months from the work which shall

mean so much to the world. Now I am glad I have found it out before

it is too late. I have no right to you, Tony. In answer to what you

asked me yesterday, I say no. You will not believe it is for your

sake, dear, but it is. I see you could not share my life in any

way, and keep your ideals. How could I ask you to? I see I could

not share your struggle and leave you free enough to keep your

ideals.

"I can never quite believe that love is a mistake. I shall think of

mine for you the rest of my life. When you read this letter I shall

have left Paris. Do not try to find me or follow me. I know your

pride, dear, the greatest pride I ever saw or dreamed of. I wonder

if it is a right one. At any rate, it will not let you follow me; I

am sure of that. I wish to put between us an immeasurable distance,

one which no folly on your part and no weakness on mine could

bridge. Cedersholm has returned from Russia, and I told him last

night that I would marry him.--MARY."

Then, for the first time, Tony knew how he loved her. Crushing the

letter between his hands, he snatched up his hat and rushed out, took a

cab, and drove like mad to her house.

The little horse galloped with him, the driver cracked his whip with

utterances like the sparks flying, and they tore up the Champs Elysees,

part of the great multitude, yet distinct, as is every individual with

their definite sufferings and their definite joys.

Her house stood white and distinct at the back of the garden, the

windows were flung open. On the steps of the terrace a man-servant, to

whom Antony had given fat tips which he could not afford, stood in an

undress uniform, blue apron and duster over his arm; painters came out

with ladders and placed them against the wall. The old gardener,

Felicien, who had given him countless _boutonnieres_, mounted the steps

with a flower-pot in his hand and talked with the man-servant; he was

joined by two maids. The place was left, then, to servants. Everything

seemed changed. She might never--he was sure she would never--return as

Mrs. Faversham. Immeasurably far away indeed, as she said--immeasurably

far--she seemed to have gone into another sphere, and yet he had held

her in his arms! The thought of his tenderness was too real to permit of

any other consideration holding its place. He sprang out of his cab,

rang the door-bell, and when the door was opened he asked the surprised

servant for Mrs. Faversham's address.

"But I have no idea of it, monsieur," said the man with a comprehensive

gesture. "None."

"You are not sending any letters?"

"None, monsieur."

Fairfax's blue eyes, his pale, handsome face, appealed very much to

Ferdinand. He liked Monsieur Rainsford. Although the chap did not know

it himself, Tony had been far more generous than were the millionaires.

Ferdinand called one of the maids.

"Where's madame's maid stopping in London?" asked the butler.

"Why, at the Ritz," said Louise promptly. "She is always at the Ritz,

monsieur."

Tony had no more gold to reward this treachery.

When Dearborn came home that night from Versailles he found a note on

the table, leaning up against the box in which the two comrades kept

their mutual fund of money. Dearborn's advance royalty was all gone but

a hundred francs.

"I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. "Sell anything of mine

you like before I get back, if you are hard up.--TONY."

He spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to meet Cedersholm

with her, he would have shot him. From the hour he had received her

letter and learned that she was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been

hardly sane.

At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days after he had

left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting-room at the Whiteheart Hotel,

in Windsor. He had traced her there from the Ritz.

Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, white as death.

"Tony," she said, "don't come nearer--stand there, Tony. Dear Tony, it

is too late, too late!"

He limped across the room and took her in his arms, looking at her

wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled.

"I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he

comes."

He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and

buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision

of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought

at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his

hair, weeping.

"Go," she said. "Go, my darling."

Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his

heart. He crushed them down.

"I love you for your pride," she said. "I adore you for the brave demand

you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake."

Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have ruined my life."

"Oh no!" she cried. "Don't say such a thing!"

"Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with tears in his eyes. "You

loved me," he challenged, "you did love me!"

She did not dare to say "I love you still." She saw what the tragedy

would be.

"We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, dear?"

He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you could not have

cared." And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change.

"I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have

done this."

Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time

brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had

cried once before--

"Tell him how I kissed you--tell him!"

White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. "For the love of

God, Tony, go!"

And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for

some solemn festivity were blowing.

"The flowers of the forest are all wied away."

BOOK IV

BELLA

CHAPTER I

From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he

brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years'

study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to

the sculpturing of the second tomb--the Open Door.

There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, and he mingled with

them, watching them muse, discuss, criticize, grow sad and thoughtful

before his conception of Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom

Rainsford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. Others

hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open Door. Purely white,

stainless, slender, luminous and yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by

Antony. His conception made him famous.

He had exhibited each year with increasing success at private

exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had been called "poseur"

because of his reluctance to expose his work in national academies. His

bas-reliefs had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled the

solemn marble that came now from his studio. Antony's work occupied some

twenty feet in the Champ de Mars.

His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the floor, in which the

critics spoke of him in terms he thought fulsome and ridiculous, and

they pained him while they dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had

thought of Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to his

questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, married, no doubt, always

enchanting. How she had stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing,

and her eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, "Who is

it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, beautiful!" He would have

liked to have led Bella to his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with

her, until the crowd around them should have melted away, have stood

there with her alone. From the night her inspiring little hand had

stolen into his, Bella's hand had seemed a mate for his.

"Who is it, Cousin Antony?"

Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open Door? What woman's face

and form constantly inspired him, haunting him, promising to haunt him

until the end? He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions

and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the companion.

Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, his past, had done

their work. What fresh inspiration would urge him now to create?

The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb made him celebrated

in twenty-four hours. At a time when all Paris was laughing at Rodin's

Balzac, there was a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist

and dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique.

He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise which the "Open

Door" called forth from the reviews. "It is not as good as all that," he

thought, "and it is too soon to hear thunder about my ears."

He seemed to see the door of his future open and himself standing there,

the burden of proof upon him. What work he must continue to produce in

order to sustain such sudden fame! The _Figaro_ called him a "giant,"

and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. His mail was

full of letters from friends and strangers. By ten o'clock the night of

the "Vernissage" all his acquaintances and intimates in Paris had

brought him their felicitations. He turned back to his table where his

letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, enthusiastic expression

of praise and belief from Potowski. There was another note which he had

read first with anger, then with keen satisfaction, and then with as

much malice as his heart could hold.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I have the honour to represent in France the committee for the

construction in Boston of a triumphal arch to be raised in

commemoration of the men who first fell in the battle of the

Revolution. The idea is to crown this arch with a group of figures,

either realistic or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit.

After carefully considering the modern work of men in France, I am

inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept it. Your

'Open Door' is the most beautiful piece of sculpture, according to

my opinion, in modern times. An appointment would gratify me very

much.

"I have the honour to be, sir, etc.,

"GUNNER CEDERSHOLM."

Antony had given the appointment with excitement, and he was waiting now

to see for the first time in ten years the man who had stolen from him

fame, honour, and love.

He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six years. As far as he

knew, during this time they had never returned to France. Once he

vaguely understood that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's

health.

His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded as his bitterest

enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought now only as he thought of woman, of

vain visions which he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly

torn his love out of his heart.

After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for some time in London

where Dearborn had followed him, and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet

were married. Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's

Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful play. Fairfax

took a position as professor of drawing in a girls' school in the West

End and taught a group of schoolgirls for several months. Between times

he modelled on his statues for his new conception of the "Open Door."

Then in the following spring, with a yearning in his heart and

homesickness for France, he returned into the city with the May. He

could scarcely look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. He

rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and began his work in

terrible earnestness.

Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if Mary Cedersholm had

visited the Salon, if with others she had stood before his sculpture.

His servant announced "Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and

shut the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast studio in the soft

light of late afternoon with which the spring twilight, rapidly

withdrawing, filled the room. Antony did not stir from his chair, where

he sat enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

The small man--Fairfax had forgotten how small he was--entered

cautiously as though he were entering the room of a foe, which, indeed,

he was doing, without being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had

seen Cedersholm wearing a single eyeglass, and now spectacles of

extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently saw with

difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, Cedersholm approached,

saying tentatively--

"Mr. Rainsford? I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Rainsford."

"Yes," said Fairfax curtly, "I am here. Sit down, will you?"

His lame foot, which would have disclosed his identity, was withdrawn

under his chair.

"I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, "where I had a

sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly."

"Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, "is a common failing, but many of us

don't know we have anything the matter with our eyes."

"It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said Cedersholm, taking the

chair to which Fairfax had pointed.

From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a cigar, which was

refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it was evident he had not been

recognized.

"I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm said. "A man like

you who must adore his work can easily imagine what this means."

"For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I know what it means."

"Ah!" exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. "What was your infirmity?"

"Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You have not come to talk with

me about the short and simple annals of the poor."

"All that which goes to make the education and career of a great man,"

said Cedersholm, "is deeply interesting, especially to a confrere. You

have executed a very great piece of work, Mr. Rainsford."

Fairfax made no response.

"You seem," said Cedersholm, "to doubt my sincerity. You received my

letter?"

"Yes."

"Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work?"

The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered from his former self

that Tony was obliged to whip up his memories, to call up all his past

in order to connect this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale,

meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, disfigured by his thick

glasses, he seemed to have shrunk into a little insignificant creature.

No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax

answered it would depend upon circumstances.

"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can

understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some

appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his

glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then

carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. "I have

suffered dreadfully with these infirm eyes," he said.

Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip up his memories,

and, once goaded, like all revengeful and evil things, they came now

quickly to bring back to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice

had disappeared--his nature was too sweet, too generous and forgiving to

brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. He had been living fast; he

had been working intensely; he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes

and sighed and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of his

studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, instead, Cedersholm's

rich, extravagant New York workshop rose up before his eyes. He saw

himself again the young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and

trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was to be immortal

labour; it had been given for this man then, the greatest living

sculptor, to adopt it for his own. Now his heart began to beat fast. He

clasped his hands strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat.

"I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, "a tremendous price."

"Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. "Talent such as yours

should be paid for generously. I used to think so. I have commanded my

price, Mr. Rainsford."

"I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax.

The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, and continued--

"The committee is very rich; there are men of enormous fortunes

interested in the monument. They can pay--in reason," he added; "of

course, in reason--and as you are an American there would be in your

mind the ideal of patriotism."

"My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax.

Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him lacking in

courtesy and manners, began to peer at him keenly in the rapidly

deepening twilight.

"In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be understood and approved

of by the man who, in his judgment, was important in the sculpture of

the time, he continued courteously, "there is no price too much to pay

for art. I have followed your work for years."

"Have you?" said Antony.

"Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition of the works of

the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm again took out his fine silk

handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. "Since then I have looked for

comments on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you mentioned, I

reminded the fact to my wife, who was an admirer of your talent."

Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his blood chilled. Mary!

Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. He drew his breath hard, clasped one hand

across his forehead, and still back in the far remote past he did not

bid this vision of Mary Cedersholm to linger.

"When I came back to Paris, I found you had justified my faith in your

work. The question of payment now, in case you undertake this group, for

instance, I dare say the matter would be satisfactorily adjusted."

"I doubt it, Mr. Cedersholm."

Cedersholm, already interested in the man as a worker, became now

interested in his personality, and found him curious, settled himself

comfortably in his chair and swung his monocle, which he still wore, by

its string. He saw the face of his host indistinctly, and his eyes

wandered around the vast, shadowy studio where the swathed casts stood

in the corners. The place gave him a twinge of jealousy and awakened all

his longings as an artist.

"It makes me acutely suffer," he said, "to come into the workshop of the

sculptor. Four years of enforced idleness----" Then he broke in abruptly

and said, "You have apparently settled already in your mind--decided not

to accept this work for us. I think you are determined not to meet us,

Mr. Rainsford."

"The price," said Antony, leaning fully forward, his blue eyes, whose

sight was unimpeded, fixed on Cedersholm, "must be great enough to buy

me back my lost youth."

His companion laughed gently and said indulgently, "My dear Mr.

Rainsford."

"To buy me back my loss of faith in men's honour, in human kindness, in

justice, in woman's love."

"He is a true genius," Cedersholm thought to himself, "just a bit over

the line of mental balance." And he almost envied Antony this frenzy,

for he had always judged himself too sane to be a great artist.

"It must buy me back three years of bitter struggle, of degrading manual

toil."

"My dear man," said the sculptor indulgently. "I think I understand you,

but no material price could ever do what you ask. Money, unfortunately,

has nothing to do with the past; it can take care of the future more or

less, but the past is beyond repurchase, you know."

It was growing constantly darker. The corners of the studio were deep

in shadows, and the forms of Antony's casts shone like spectres in their

white clothes; the scaffoldings looked ghostly and spirit-like.

Cedersholm sighed.

"Why have you come to me?" he heard Fairfax ask in his cutting tone, and

he understood that for some reason or other this stranger was purposely

impolite and unfriendly to him. He had not even found Fairfax's face

familiar. There he sat before Antony, small, insignificant. How often he

had crossed Tony's mind in some ugly dream when he had longed to crush

him like a reptile. Now that he stood before him in flesh and blood it

was astonishing to Fairfax to see how little real he was.

"I have been absent from France for six years," continued the Swede, and

paused.... And Antony knew he was going back in his mind over the past

six years of his married life with Mary. "I returned to Paris this week,

and wandered into the Salon and stood with a crowd before your

bas-relief. I stood for quite half an hour there, I should think, and at

least one hundred men and women passed and paused as I had paused. I

listened to their comments. I saw your popularity and your power, and

saw how you touched the mass by the real beauty of real emotion, by your

expression of feeling in plastic art. This is not often achieved

nowadays, Mr. Rainsford. Sculpture is the least emotional of all the

arts; literature, painting, and music stir the emotions and bring our

tears, but that calm, sublime marble, that cold stone awes us by its

harmonious perfection. Before sculpture we are content to marvel and

worship, and in the 'Open Door' you have made us do all this and made us

weep. I do not doubt that amongst those people many had lost their own

by death." He paused. It was so dark now that the two men saw each

other's face indistinctly. In the shadows Cedersholm's form had

softened; the shadows blurred him before Fairfax's eyes; his voice was

intensely melancholy. "To every man and woman who has lost your

bas-relief is profoundly appealing. Every one of us must go through that

door. Your conception, Mr. Rainsford, and your execution are sublime."

Fairfax murmured something which Cedersholm did not make out. He paused

a moment, apparently groping in thought as he groped with his weak eyes,

and as Fairfax did not respond, he continued--

"You spoke just now of the price we must pay you, the price which you

say must buy you back--what I judge you to mean by your progress, by

these years of labour and education, by your apprenticeship to art, and,

let me say, to life. My dear man, they have already purchased for you

your present achievement, your present power. Everything we have, you

know, must be paid for. Some things are paid for in coin, and others in

flesh and blood and tears. To judge by what we know of the progress of

the world in spiritual things and in art, it is the things that are

purchased by this travail of the spirit that render eternal possessions,

the eternal impressions. No man who has not suffered as you have

apparently suffered, no man who has not walked upon thorns, could have

produced the 'Open Door.' Do not degrade the value of your past life and

the value of every hour of your agony. Why, it is above price." He

paused ... his voice shook. "It is the gift of God!"

Antony's hands were clasped lightly together; they had been holding each

other with a grip of steel; now they relaxed a bit. He bowed his head a

little from its proud hauteur, and said--

"You are right; you are right."

"Four years ago," continued the voice--Cedersholm had become to him now

only a voice to which he listened in the darkness--"four years ago, if I

had seen the 'Open Door,' I would have appreciated its art as I

recognized the value of your figure which I bought at the Exposition,

but I could not have understood it; its spiritual lesson would have been

lost upon me. You do not know me," he continued, "and I can in no way

especially interest you. But these six years of my life, especially the

last two, have been my Garden of Gethsemane."

He stopped. Antony knew that he had taken out the silk handkerchief

again and wiped his eyes. After a second, Cedersholm said--

"You must have lost some one very near you."

"My wife," said Antony Fairfax.

The other man put out his hand, and he touched Antony's closed hands.

"I have lost my wife as well; she died two years ago."

Cedersholm heard Antony's exclamation and felt him start violently.

"Your wife," he cried, "Mary ... dead ... dead?"

"Yes. Why do you exclaim like that?"

"Not Mary Faversham?"

"Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. Did you know her?"

With a supreme effort Antony controlled himself. His voice suffocated

him.

Dead! He felt again the touch of her lips; he heard again her voice; he

felt her arms around him as she held him in Windsor--"Tony, darling, go!

It is too late."

Oh! the Open Door!

Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had produced in himself,

and in his grief, did not notice that Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs.

Cedersholm in Paris.

"My wife was very delicate," he said. "We travelled everywhere. She

faded and my life stopped when she died. To-day, when I saw the 'Open

Door,' it had a message for me that brought me the first solace." Again

his hands sought Fairfax's. "Thank you, brother artist," he murmured;

"you have suffered as I have. You understand."

From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit the candle. Its pale

light flickered up in the big dark room like a lily shining in a tomb.

He said, with a great effort--

"I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did she never speak of

me?"

"Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. "She met so many people in

France; she was so surrounded. She admired greatly the little figure I

bought at the Exposition; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as

a coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned having known

you."

To Antony this was the greatest proof she could have given him of her

love for him. That careful silence, the long silence, not once speaking

his name. He had triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him.

Cedersholm murmured--

"And you did that bas-relief--a head silhouetted against a lattice? It

never left her room, but she never mentioned it to me although I greatly

admired it. It Was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer at

him through the candle light. "Curious," he continued, "curious."

And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never forget his cry of

"Mary--Mary dead!" And her silence regarding his existence and his name,

and that silence and that cry would go together in the husband's memory.

The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who came in calling--

"Tony, Tony, old man."

Cedersholm rose, and Antony rose as well, putting out his hand, saying--

"I will undertake the work you speak of, if your committee will write me

confirming your suggestion. And I leave the price to you, you know; you

understand what such work is worth. I place myself in your hands."

Dearborn had come up to them. "Tony," said Dearborn, "what are you

plotting in the dark with a single candle?"

Fairfax presented him. "Mr. Cedersholm, Robert Dearborn, the playwright,

the author of 'All Roads Meet.'"

Dearborn shook the sculptor's hand lightly. He wondered how this must

have been for his friend. He looked curiously from one to the other.

"'All Roads Meet,'" he quoted keenly. "Good name, don't you think? They

all do meet somewhere"--he put his hand affectionately on Tony's

shoulder--"even if it is only at the Open Door." Then he asked, partly

smiling, "And the beautiful Mrs. Cedersholm, is she in Paris too?"

"My wife," said Cedersholm shortly, "died two years ago."

"Dead!" exclaimed Robert Dearborn in a low tone of regret, the tone of

every man who regrets the passing of a lovely creature that they have

admired. "Dead! I beg your pardon, I did not know. I am too heartily

sorry."

He put out his kindly hand. Cedersholm scarcely touched it. He was

excited, overwhelmed, and began to take his leave, to walk rapidly

across the big room.

As the three men went together toward the door of the studio, Fairfax

turned up an electric light. It shone brightly on them all, on

Dearborn's grave, charming face, touched with the news of the death of

the woman his friend had loved, on Cedersholm's almost livid face, on

his thick glasses, and on Antony limping at his side. Cedersholm saw the

limp, the unmistakable limp, the heavy boot, his stature, his beautiful

head, and in spite of his infirmity he saw enough of his host to make

him know him, to make him remember him, and his heart, which had begun

to ache at Fairfax's cry of Mary, seemed to die within him. He

remembered the man whom he had cheated out of his work and out of public

acknowledgment. He knew now what Fairfax meant by the repurchase of his

miserable youth. He had believed Antony Fairfax dead years ago. He had

been told that he was dead. Now he limped beside him, powerful, clever,

acknowledged, and moreover, there he stood beside him with memories that

Cedersholm would never know, with memories that linked him with Mary

Faversham-Cedersholm. In an unguarded moment that cry had escaped from

the heart of a man who must have loved her. He thought of the bas-relief

that hung always above her bed, and he thought of her silence, more

eloquent now to him even than Antony's cry, and that silence and that

cry would haunt him till the end, and the silence could never be broken

now that she had gone through the Open Door.

* * * * *

Dearborn had not been with him all day until now. He had come up radiant

to Tony, and putting his hand on his shoulder, said--

"My dear Tony, I had to come in to-day just to bring you a piece of

news--to tell you a rumour, rather. The 'Open Door' has been bought by

the Government. Your fame is made. I wanted to be the first to tell you.

I went into the Embassy for a little while to hear them talk about you,

and I can assure you that I did hear them. The ambassador himself told

me this news is official. Every one will know to-morrow."

They talked together until the morning light came grey across the panes

of the atelier, and the light was full of new creations, of new ideals

of fame and life, of new ambitions and dreams for them both. Enthralled

and inspired each by the other, the two artists talked and dreamed.

Dearborn's new play was running into its two-hundredth performance. He

was a rich man. Now Antony paused on the threshold of his studio,

looking back into the deserted workroom filling with the April evening.

In every corner, one by one, the visions rose and floated. They became

new statues, new creations, indistinct and ethereal. Only the space,

where the work that had been carried away to the Salon had once stood,

was bare. As he shut the door he felt that he shut the door for ever

upon his past, upon his young manhood and upon his youth.

CHAPTER II

In the early days of July he found himself once more alone in the empty

studio, where he had worked for twelve months at the "Open Door."

The place where the huge marble had stood was empty; in its stead fame

remained.

Looking back, it seemed now that his hardships had not been severe

enough. Had success really come? Would it stay? Was he only the child of

an hour? Could he sustain? He recalled the little statuettes which he

had made out of the clay of the levee when he was a boy. He remembered

his beautiful mother's praise--

"Why, Tony, they are extraordinary, my darling."

And the constant fever had run through his veins all his life. He had

made his apprenticeship over theft and death. He said to himself--

"I shall sustain."

As he mused there, the praise he had received ringing in his ears, he

entertained fame and saw the shadow of laurel on the floor, under the

lamplight, where his marble had stood, long and white.

He had made warm friends and bound them to him. He loved the city and

its beauties. His refinement and sense of taste had matured. Antony knew

that in his soul he was unaltered, that he was marked by his past, and

that the scars upon him were deep.

He was very much alone; there was no one with whom he could share his

glory. Should he become the greatest living sculptor, to whom could he

bring his honours, his joys?

For a long time Bella went with him in everything he did. His visions

were banished by the vivid thought of her. When he came into his studio

at twilight he would fancy he saw her sitting by the table.

She would lean there, not like a spirit-like woman under the shaded

lamp, sewing at little children's garments ... not like that!

Nevertheless, Bella sat there as a woman who waits for a return, the

charming figure, the charming head with its crown of dark hair, and the

lovely, brilliantly coloured face. Now there was nothing spirit-like in

Antony's picture.

Then again he would imagine that he saw her in the crowd before his

bas-relief at the Salon; he would select some woman dressed in an

unusually smart spring gown and call her Bella to himself, until he saw

her turn.

Once indeed, there, on the edge of the crowd, leaning with her hands

upon the handle of her parasol, he was sure he saw her. The pose of the

body was charming, the turn of the head almost as haughty as his own

mother's, but the slenderness and the magnetism were Bella's own.

Antony chose this woman upon whom to fix his attention, and he thought

that when she would move the resemblance would be gone.

The young girl suddenly altered her pose, and Antony saw her fully; he

saw the proud beautiful face, piquant, alluring, a trifle sad; the

brilliant lips, the colour in the cheeks, like a snow-set peach, the

wonderful eyes, could belong to but one woman.

Separated from her by a little concourse of people, Antony could only

cry, "Bella!" to himself. He started eagerly toward the place where he

had seen her, but she vanished as the mirage on the desert's face.

What had he seen? A real woman, or only a trick of resemblance?

It was real enough to make him search the newspapers and the hotel lists

and the bankers. Now he could not think of her name without a mighty

emotion. If that were Bella, she was too lovely to be true! She _must_

be his, no matter at what price, no matter what her life might be.

A fortnight after he received in his mail a letter from America. The

address, "Mr. Thomas Rainsford," was in a round full hand, a handsome

hand; first he thought it a man's. He opened it with slight interest.

The paper exhaled an intangible odour; it was not perfume, but a

delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason, or other, the

smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis in New Orleans. He read--

"Mr. Thomas Rainsford.

"DEAR SIR,--

"This will seem to be a very extraordinary letter, I know. I hardly

know how to write such a letter. When I was in Paris a few weeks

ago, I stood before the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have

ever seen. I do not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a

more deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not what I

think about it in that way, which is of interest. It cannot be of

any interest to you, as you do not know me, nor is it for this that

I am writing to you. Again, I do not know how to tell you.

"Where did you get your ideas for your statue? That is what I want

to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, very much like yours--I should

almost say identically yours--was made by my cousin, Antony

Fairfax, in Albany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar

prize in Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, and

no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For this reason I

write to ask you where you got your inspiration for the 'Open

Door.' It can be nothing to him that his beautiful work has been

more beautifully done by a stranger, can do him no harm, but I want

to know. Will you write me to the care of the Women's Art League,

5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign to answer this

letter. Do not think that I am making any reproach to you. It can

be nothing to my cousin; he is dead but it would be a comfort to

me. Once again, I hope you will let me hear from you.

"Yours faithfully,

"BELLA CAREW."

The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, looked at the

handwriting, held it before his eyes, to which the tears rushed. He

pressed the faintly scented pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella ...

He stretched out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three

thousand miles--

"Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some day, Bella Carew."

It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful bust of Bella Carew.

When he finished the "Open Door," he said that he would not work for a

year, that he was exhausted bodily and mentally; certainly he had lacked

inspiration. But the afternoon of the day on which he had read this

letter--this letter that opened for him a future--he set feverishly to

work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which the critics have

likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, and other masters. He modelled

from memory, guided by his recollections of that picturesque face he had

seen under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before his

bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagination, with hope and new

love, from old love too; told himself he had fallen in love with Bella

the first night he had seen her, when she had comforted him about his

heavy step.

Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he put all his ideal of

what a woman's face should be. He fell in love with his creation, in

love with the clay that he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the

studio from which had been removed his study for the tomb, and this

represented a living woman. It seemed almost to become flesh and blood

under his ardent hand. "Bella!" he called to her as he smoothed the

lovely cheek and saw the peach bloom under it.

"Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair along her neck, and

remembered the wild, tangled forest that had fallen across his face when

he carried her in his arms during their childish romps. "Honey child,"

he murmured as he modelled and moulded the youthful lines of the mouth

and lips and stood yearning before them, all his heart and soul in his

hands that made before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the

very conception and expression of what he wanted his wife to be.

They say that men have fallen in love with that beautiful face of Bella

Carew as modelled by Fairfax.

Arch and subtle, tender and provoking, distinguished, youthful,

alluring, it is the most charming expression of young womanhood that an

artist's hand could give to the world.

"Beloved," he murmured like a man half in sleep and half awakening, and

he folded the lines of her bodice across her breast and fastened them

there by a single rose.

With a sweep of her lovely hair, with an uplift of the corners of her

beautiful lips, with the rose at her breast, Bella Carew will charm the

artistic world so long as the clay endures.

CHAPTER III

On the promenade deck of one of the big steamers, as it pushed around

into its pier, a man stood in his long overcoat, his hands in his

pockets, hoping to avoid the reporters whom he had reason to suppose

were ready to make him their prey.

He was entering New York Harbour at an early hour in the morning. It was

November, and over the river and over the city hung the golden haze. If

the lines of the objects, if the shore and buildings were crude, their

impression was not so to him. To and fro the ferries plied from shore to

shore, and their whistles and the whistles of the tugs spoke shrilly and

loudly to the morning, but there was nothing nasal or blatant to him in

the noises. He found the scene, the light of the morning, the greeting

of the city as it stirred to life, enchanting. He had gone away from it

six years ago, a broken-hearted man, and it seemed now as though he had

made his history in an incredibly short time. Down in the hold of the

boat, in their cases, reposed his sculptures, some thirty statues and

models that he had brought for his exposition in New York. He had come

back celebrated. His visions and his dreams so far had been fulfilled.

Once again all his past, all his emotions, his tears and aspirations,

culminated in this hour. This was his return, but not as Antony Fairfax.

He did not know that he should ever take his old name again. He had made

the name of Thomas Rainsford famous, and the fact gave him a singular

tender satisfaction, linking him with a dear man who had loved him. He

felt almost as though his friend were resurrected or given a new draught

of immortal life every time the name was said.

A young man came up to him, pencil in hand, his look eager and

appealing, and Fairfax recognized a reporter in search of a good

newspaper story. He understood the poor clothes, the dogged

determination.

"You want a story?" he said. "Well, sit down."

The newspaper man, highly delighted with the sculptor's sympathy and

understanding, wrote his interview with enthusiasm.

Fairfax talked for five minutes, and said at the close, "I had not

intended to be interviewed. But you are a rising man; you have secured

me against my will."

The reporter put up his pad. "Thank you, Mr. Rainsford; but this is so

impersonal. I would like some of your views on art. They tell me you

have had a tough fight for success and existence."

"Many of us have that," said Fairfax.

"Your ideals, sir?"

The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first interview. Fairfax

smiled.

"Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, the labour of the

last six years. Go to my exposition, and you will see my ideals."

As the other took his leave Antony saw himself again, poor, unknown, as

he had set foot in New York. There was a deputation on the wharf to meet

him from the Academy of Design, and he walked down the gang-plank alone,

leaving no one behind him in France who stood to him for family, and he

would find no one in America who should mean to him hearth and home.

They had taken rooms for him in the old Hotel Plaza overlooking 59th

Street; there, toward the afternoon of the first day, he found himself

at three o'clock, alone in his parlour overlooking Central Park.

The trees were still in leaf. November was mild and golden. The air of

America, of the city which had once been unfriendly to him, and which

now opened its doors, blew in upon him through the open window like a

caress. He looked musingly at the little park where he had wandered with

Gardiner and Bella, on the Sunday holiday, when Bella had told him "all

things she wanted to do were wicked."

Amongst his statues he had brought over was one lately bought by France

and presented to the Metropolitan Museum. It was the marble of a little

girl mourning over a dead blackbird. Everything in the city was

connected now with Bella Carew.

There was a sheaf of invitations on the table from well-known New

Yorkers, invitations to dinners, invitations to lecture, and he knew

that he would be taken into the kindliest heart of New York. Well, if

work can give a man what he wants, he had worked enough for it; there

was no doubt about that. It had been nearly a year since his interview

with Cedersholm. He brought with him casts and statues for the triumphal

arch in Boston, and he intended taking a studio here and continuing his

work in America, but he had no plans. In spite of his success and the

prices he could command, his thoughts and his mind were all at sea. His

personality had not yet developed to the point where he was at peace. He

knew that such peace could only come to him through the companionship of

a woman.

No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax now.

Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. If Bella Carew were

a rich and brilliant heiress it would probably alienate him from her.

His need called for a woman who could work at his side with a kindred

interest, a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose appreciation and

criticism could not leave him cold.

What would Bella Carew, when he found her--as he should--prove herself

to be? Spoiled she was, no doubt, mistress for several years of a large

fortune, coquette, flirt; of these things he was partly sure, because

she had not married. Children with her great promise develop sometimes

into nonentities, but Bella, at sixteen, had surpassed his wildest

prophecies for her. Bella, as he had seen her on the outskirts of the

crowd, had driven him mad. He knew that it had been she; there was no

doubt about it in his mind. Now to find her, to see what she had become.

He knew that Bella, when she opened the morning papers the next day--if

she were in New York--would discover who he was. There would be

descriptions of him as a lame sculptor; there would be reproductions of

his "Open Door"; there would be the fact that he was born in New

Orleans; that he assumed the name of Rainsford. Now that he had no

longer any secret to keep, his own name, Antony Fairfax, would appear.

Bella would not fail to know him.

CHAPTER IV

He took his gloves and his hat and started out. He drove to the address

which Bella had given him, where her letters were to be sent. It was a

studio building, and the woman stenographer at the general desk knew

that Miss Carew was absent in Europe and had not returned.

This was a blow; the woman saw the disappointment on his face.

"Miss Carew's letters?" he asked.

She pointed to the empty box. They were all sent to her to Europe.

He wandered in the little office whilst the woman did her work. He

glanced around him. On the walls there were framed sketches; there were

busts in plaster on pedestals.

It struck him as strange that Bella should have her letters sent to her

to a studio. He wanted to question the secretary, hesitated, then

asked--

"You know Miss Carew?"

"Very well."

"I reckon she patronizes this academy."

It would not have been surprising if she had given it some large

donation.

The stenographer repeated the word, "Patronizes? Miss Carew works here

when she is in America; she has a small studio here."

"Works here? Do you mean she paints?"

The woman smiled. "Yes; she has been studying in Florence. I expect her

home every day."

Fairfax still lingered, drawing his soft gloves through his hands.

"There's nothing to do, then, but to wait,"--he smiled on her his light

smile. He turned to go, hesitated. The temptation was too strong.

"Miss Carew paints portraits?"

"Yes," said the stenographer, "beautiful portraits."

He smiled, biting his lips. He remembered the parallel lines, the

reluctant little hand drawing them across the board.

"No more parallel lines, Cousin Antony."

He did not believe that she painted beautiful portraits. He would have

loved to see her work, oh, how much! There must be some of it here.

"There is nothing of hers here, I suppose?"

He went across the little room to the door. He could hardly bear to go

from here, from the only place that had any knowledge of Bella as far as

he knew.

He took out his card, scribbled his address upon it, handed it to the

stenographer, without asking anything of her but to let him know when

she would come back.

The woman nodded sympathetically.

"It is unusual for a great heiress, like Miss Carew, to paint

portraits."

"She is not a great heiress; Mr. Carew lost all his money two years ago.

I think Miss Carew is almost quite poor."

A radiant look came over Antony's face. "Thank you very much indeed," he

said. "I count on you to take care of this little commission for me,"

and he went out of the room in ecstasy, closing the door behind him.

CHAPTER V

He left his hansom at the entrance of the park, at 72nd Street.

There, on the corner, stood his uncle's house, a monument, to him, of

the past. His heart beat hard as he looked at the unfriendly dwelling

from whose doors he had rushed on the night of the winter blizzard,

when, as it had seemed to him then, little Gardiner's spirit rushed with

him out into the storm. From those windows Bella had waved her hand.

How his spirits had risen high with hope, the night on which he had

first gone up those steps. It was on that night Bella had said to him,

"Why, you have got a light step and a heavy step, Cousin Antony. I never

heard any one walk like that before."

He tramped into Central Park, taking his way to the Metropolitan Museum.

At the door he was informed that the museum was closed. He gave his

card, and, after a few words with the man in charge, Thomas Rainsford

the sculptor was let in and found himself, to all intents and purposes,

alone. He wandered about the sculptures, wondering where the statue of

little "Bella" would be placed.

The rooms were delightfully restful. He chose a bench and sat down,

resting and musing.

In front of one of the early Italian pictures stood an easel with a copy

exposed upon it to his view. A reproduction of a sixteenth-century

Madonna with a child upon her breast. The copy showed the hand of an

adept in colour and drawing. Antony looked at it with keen pleasure,

musing upon the beauty of the child.

Afterwards he rose and went into the Egyptian room, lingering there. But

when he came back the painter was there before her easel, and Antony

stood in the doorway to watch her at work.

She wore a long brown linen painting apron that covered her form,

evidently a slender form, evidently a young form. She painted ardently,

with confidence and absorption. As Antony watched her, her pose, her

ardour, the poise of her body, the lovely dark head, the gestures, the

fire of her, brought all of a sudden his past rushing back to him. The

sight of her came to him with a thrilling, wonderful remembrance. He

came forward, his light step and his heavy step falling on the hard wood

floors of the museum.

She turned before he was close to her, her palette and her brushes in

her hand. She stood for a moment immovable, then gave a little cry,

dropped her palette and brushes on the floor, grew white, then blushed

deeply and held out both her hands to him.

"Cousin Antony!"

He took her hands in his, could not find his voice even to say her name.

He heard her say--

"They told me you were dead! I thought you had died long ago--I thought

another man had taken your genius and your fame."

She spoke fast, with catching breath, in a low vibrant tone that he

remembered--how he did remember it! His very life seemed to breathe on

her lips in the sound of her voice. "Flow gently, sweet Afton"--the

music was here--here--all the music in the world!

"I know who you are now; I saw it in the paper. I read it this morning.

I saw your picture, and I knew." She stopped to catch her breath deeply.

"Oh, I'm so glad!"

She was more beautiful than he had dreamed she would be; brilliant,

bewitching, and the flowers of his past clustered round her.

"I heard them falling through the rooms, the light step and the heavy

step."

Slowly by both her hands which he held he drew her toward him, and as he

held her cheek against his lips he heard her murmur--

"Back from the dead! Cousin Antony.... No, just Antony!"

"Little cousin!" he said. "Bella!"

THE END

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

The following misprints have been corrected:

"Miss Whitcombs'" corrected to "Miss Whitcomb's" (page 19)

"the eager Miss Whitcombs" corrected to "the eager Miss Whitcomb"

(page 23)

"succeceded" corrected to "succeeded" (page 24)

"bas relief" changed to "bas-relief" (pages 47, 54)

"bas reliefs" changed to "bas-reliefs" (pages 62,67)

"choirmaster" is standardized to "choir-master" (pages 118, 121)

"reponse" corrected "response" (page 197)

Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in

spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.

End of Project Gutenberg's Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst