Promptly at nine o'clock in the morning of every business day for fifteen
years, Hannibal G. Pelgram, uncle of Stanwood Pelgram, had seated himself
at his desk in the office of the Pelgram Plumbers' Supply Company, and it
was rarely that he left before his stenographer had begun to show signs
of impatience and anxiety. But in the sixteenth year of his reign his
liver, which up to that time had acted with the most commendable
regularity, began to develop alarming eccentricities of behavior. Mr.
Pelgram became gradually less certain in his attendance, and finally his
struggle with the refractory liver ended in the victory of that
inconspicuous but important organ, and he passed peacefully away at a
German spa in the course of taking a cure which would very likely have
killed him even had he been in perfectly normal health.
His will began by the customary direction to his executor to pay his just
debts and funeral expenses--exactly as though the executor was assumed to
be a thoroughly unscrupulous person who, although not benefiting himself
in the least by his dishonesty, would try in every possible way to evade
settlement with all the dead man's legitimate creditors, including the
undertaker. Then he left a small bequest to a faithful cook and another
to an endowed retreat for tuberculous Baptists which already had more
money than it could hope ever to use. The residue, consisting
principally of stock in the Plumbers' Supply Company, went to Stanwood,
with the earnest wish that his nephew enter and eventually assume the
direction of the business with which the family name had been so long and
so honorably identified.
Stanwood received the news with modified rapture. He was grateful for
financial independence, but the idea of taking up the bathtub business
struck him with dismay. So with prudent forethought he sought out Amory
Carruth, a lawyer of his acquaintance; and to him explained his dilemma.
It required some measure of specious ingenuity to explain his errand as
he wished; but Mr. Carruth, being used to squirming legatees, understood
and came to the point with a candor which made Pelgram wince. After
first flippantly suggesting that the plumbing business would at least
afford Pelgram the chance to indulge his taste in porcelains, he eased
the artist's mind by a phrase as soothing as it was noncommittal.
"You can follow your uncle's will as regards the disposition of his
property. That part is sane enough. Whether it was equally sagacious,
equally sane, to try to plunge you into the plumbing business is not so
clear. We are, therefore, clearly justified if we say that he knew how
he wished to dispose of his estate, but his mental condition was such
that his legatee felt justified in modifying--in some degree--certain of
his requests."
This apologetic theory was finally accepted. Dawes, the manager, whose
surplus income had gone into the bank rather than into his liver,
purchased the estate's interest, and on the proceeds Stanwood had now for
five years been conducting his elaborate studio on Copley Square.
The completion of Miss Maitland's portrait was marked by one of the
artist's characteristic functions. By any person in the ordinary walks
of life it would have been called a tea, but Pelgram preferred to
denominate it a private view. Every time he completed a work that he
considered of real importance--relatively more often than modesty might
have prescribed--he celebrated the birth of the masterpiece by one of
these oddly termed baptisms in tannin. Possibly they were entitled to be
called views, as the opus bravely challenged the tea table in popularity,
and occasionally won by superior powers of endurance over a necessarily
limited supply of edibles, but certainly the privacy was questionable, as
to each one of them Stanwood invited nearly every one who might be
expected to come.
Fortunately not a large proportion of these actually turned up. Some
came because they were under obligations to the artist, and some because
he was under obligations to them; some from vague curiosity, and others
from sheer ignorance. Those who appeared at such a one as this, where
the portrait of a young girl was displayed, were roughly limited to a few
easily identified classes. There was centrally the young girl herself,
and then there were the members of her family, all radiant except the
purchaser of the picture, who customarily showed traces of sobriety and
skepticism. There were one or two prospective patrons lured to the trap;
some ephemeral sycophants, volunteer or mercenary; a few idle fellow
artists who enjoyed seeing a colleague make what they considered to be an
exhibition of himself; some inevitable people who went everywhere they
were asked, especially when there was a prospect of something to eat; and
a few puzzled and lonely-looking souls who could furnish no explanation
of their attendance, did not stay very long, and never came a second time.
At this view the role of sycophants was to be played by two young girls
who had taken up self-cultivation as a sort of fad, and had somehow
become obsessed with the curious idea that art such as was found in
Pelgram's studio could assist them in their commendable pursuit of
culture. Their host was consequently delighted when, at an early hour,
Miss Heatherton and Miss Long arrived, as they had promised to do. Their
manifest adoration would produce an admirable spot light in which he
might stand during the function, but more than that, he hoped that Helen
herself would be impressed by the deep regard in which these fair
disciples evidently held him and his work. Miss Heatherton was to pour
the tea, and Miss Long was to distribute the thin lettuce sandwiches
which formed its somewhat unsubstantial accompaniment.
Miss Heatherton's initial remark demonstrated the fact that, despite her
plunge into what her family considered a dangerous part of Bohemia, she
had managed to preserve intact her adherence to the traditional in
conversational matters. When Pelgram escorted her to the tea table, she
bleated a pathetic protest against his positive inhumanity in placing her
where the great work was invisible.
"Oh, Mr. Pelgram, you are really cruel! Eleanor, don't you think he
might have put me where I could sit and look at that beautiful portrait,
and not down here at the other end of the room?"
Miss Long, a tall girl with large liquid eyes and a weak red mouth,
languidly murmured a sympathetic assent, and their host smiled
deprecatingly, but with an inward glow of satisfaction; such a remark was
obviously not inspired by the exact truth, but it was nevertheless
pleasant to hear.
"Ah, Miss Heatherton," he replied, "perhaps after all it is better as I
have ordered it. For its little hour the picture should reign with its
sovereignty unquestioned, while if you were near by--" he broke off
meaningly, and Miss Long rewarded his compliment with a bovine glance of
rapture, while Miss Heatherton looked modestly down at the teapot. Even
to an unaesthetic person the arrangement seemed very good indeed, but
rather for the more practical reason that the proximity of food and drink
would very likely have distracted the attention of some of the more
hungry visitors to such a degree that the work of art might have been
comparatively ignored.
The next to arrive were Isabel Hurd and Wilkinson. Wilkinson had not
been invited, but on hearing his cousin say that she was starting for the
studio, he promptly announced that he would accompany her. He knew that
Pelgram disliked him intensely, but he did not feel the slightest
hesitation on that account in accepting the artist's hospitality, and in
fact quite enjoyed the prospect of a dash into the enemy's country. To
be sure, he saw little chance of loot except a trifling modification of
his chronic afternoon hunger; but Isabel's society was desirable, and
Pelgram appealed vividly to his sense of the ludicrous. His reception
was all he could have hoped; his host greeted him with outward
affability, but when he extended his hand from the black velvet cuff with
the handkerchief tucked into it, his face expressed the hidden anguish of
anticipated ridicule to such a degree that Wilkinson felt his visit
already justified.
"It is very good of you to come," said the artist, with a forced smile.
"I had no idea you were interested in art."
"Oh, but I am, though," returned the other, confidently. "I have no idea
what it is, but I'm very much interested in it. And every one says I
have the artistic temperament in the highest degree. By the way, what is
art, anyway? No one ever told me."
Pelgram gave a preliminary cough, and glanced hastily about the room, but
calculating that his audience would be larger later on, he restrained
himself.
"What is art?" he slowly repeated, half-closing his eyes and smiling
mystically on his guests. "What is art?" Miss Long hung breathlessly on
his words.
As, however, he seemed more interested in the question than apt to reply
to it, Wilkinson moved on toward Miss Heatherton and the tea table, while
his place was taken by Miss Maitland and her mother, who had just come
into the room.
The studio was presently quite full, and conversation rose to a shriller
pitch. The talk was mostly of art. Catch phrases indicative of
informality and intimacy with the manufacture of the beautiful were
recklessly flung about. The pace quickened. The operations of Miss
Heatherton and Miss Long threatened speedily to be terminated because of
exhausted resources as well as insufficient space. It was warmer, and
there was a queer mixed odor of tea, roses, and paint. John M. Hurd,
greatly relieved after he discovered that he was not immediately expected
to buy anything, was recounting with animation to a fat man in a frock
coat how the basis of the family fortune had been laid by Mr. Hurd's
grandfather whose one life rule was never to invest his money in anything
west of Albany, New York. One of Pelgram's colleagues had pinned Miss
Maitland into a corner and was raptly telling her how great an influence
a certain old master of whom she had never heard had exerted on the work
of an extraordinarily talented young man from Fall River whose name and
pictures alike were entirely unknown to her.
Pelgram went by with his arm familiarly passed through that of a
phlegmatic-looking young Chinaman whom he led up to Miss Maitland's
portrait. Ling Hop had been cook on a yacht, when an artistic friend of
Pelgram's and a parasite of the yacht's owner had discovered one day that
the guardian of the galley was a fair draughtsman with some little
imagination; and much to his own surprise the Oriental had been snatched
from the cook stove and thrust into the artistic arena. It was lucky for
him that his scene was set in Boston, which is always sympathetically on
edge to embrace exotic genius. In a society delicately attuned to
intellectual harmonies from all sources, however strange or weird, the
success of a Chinaman possessing the slightest facility with the brush
was assured from the first. His industrious compatriots in the local
laundries, themselves more impassionate critics, doubtless regarded Ling
Hop as an impudent charlatan; but Boston in its most restricted and
exclusive sense looked at his work with interest and respect, though
sadly without humor. The guest stood silently before the portrait,
scanning it earnestly, almost with anxiety, blinking his almond eyes
behind his shell-rimmed glasses. As, however, he did not know enough
about the technique of painting to offer a sensible appreciation, he
wisely confined himself to a very few vaguely eulogistic monosyllables,
which seemed greatly to gratify the artist.
"Ah," said Ling Hop, "delicate--delicate!" the adjective being pronounced
with a haunting repetition of its most melodious letter. Years of more
or less familiarity with the English language had not been able to efface
his racial penchant for the labial. One might naturally suppose that to
compress a native alphabet of some one hundred and twenty-six letters
into one of twenty-six would result in much confusion and some
inexplicable preferences, but no one has ever been able to point out why
the functions of the extra hundred should have to be assumed by the
letter "l" alone.
But to Pelgram the vague liquid sound fell dulcetly on the ear, and by
Miss Long and Miss Heatherton no flaw in this art criticism could be
discerned. And the artist, glancing about him, saw with gratification
that, in addition to the two young ladies, there had by some vague
current of motion been swept into his immediate vicinity human flotsam to
the extent of perhaps half a dozen irresponsible souls, ignorant that
their immediate fate was to be not guests, but auditors.
"Do you feel that? I strove for it," he said in a clear, penetrating
voice, calculated to attract the attention, if not the interest, of those
even outside the charmed though widening circle. "I strove for just
that, feeling that here, above all, it was the one desideratum. At times
I feared--" he turned to the impassive Mongolian a puckered
forehead--"that I might be sacrificing somewhat of the virile. But no!
I said--surely I can sacrifice all things, all considerations, save one."
"You were right," said Ling Hop, cryptically, feeling that he was called
upon to say something, but still with that faint adumbration of the
inevitable letter.
"In these days of strange, wild gods, in whose temples the heathen riot
in flames and flares and orgies of color, it seems to me incumbent upon
the saner among the craft to cling perhaps closer than ever to the great
canons that the great masters have set forth for us. What do these new
men worship? Color--color--blobs and blotches of raw, crude color! They
think of nothing else, these barbarians. Let drawing, arrangement,
construction even, go--they say--and with bloodshot eyes they dance in
one wild debauch of life and light! It is not art!"
Casting an imperceptibly alert eye to right and left, Pelgram saw that he
was now in possession of the maximum audience he was likely to achieve.
In a near-by corner, blockaded by three attentive gentlemen who seemed
much less interested in art than in nature, sat Miss Maitland, within
easy though obstructed earshot. She could hardly help hearing, and with
an inward sigh of satisfaction the artist gave himself over utterly to
the exordium which for some inexplicable reason formed the nucleus of his
idea of a properly conducted studio affair. He felt that he was going to
be very eloquent, and he felt reasonably secure from interruption, for no
one in that company would have the temerity to question, on his own
hearthstone, his pronunciamentos. No one,--except perhaps the
irrepressible Wilkinson,--and it was with the greatest relief that he
beheld Charlie safely out of hearing and engaged in rapt converse with
Isabel.
"Yes, those of us who believe, who still hold the immortal things sacred,
have a great trust vested in us. It is for us, the few still faithful,
to keep the lustral fires pure from defilement by the unbelievers. What
would the great draughtsmen of old, the great true colorists among the
masters, say if we should betray them to the wild, criminal vagaries of
these falsest of false prophets?"
He turned savagely upon Ling Hop, who replied, with entire truth, and
with a certain feeling for caution which showed that he could be trusted
in any crisis:--
"Yes. What?"
"They swarm with muddy feet through the safest, surest halls of art of
all time. They do not hesitate to say that arrangement--arrangement!--is
not a necessity in a work of art. They say construction is not vital.
They care nothing of whether nature at the moment is right or
wrong--whether there is a combination of circumstances worthy of
reproduction--but they throw their pictures on the canvas in any way they
chance to come. And what pictures! Raw, flaunting things, with no care
given to balance, none to line, none to color! It would be
unbelievable--if it were not true."
Miss Heatherton, on whom his inspired gaze at this juncture rested,
closed her eyes, as though she feared to disturb even by a glance the
continuity of this astonishing harangue. At the footstool of Olympus sat
Miss Long, in patient ecstasy.
"These painters--anarchists of the craft, I call them--would force us to
leave off painting quiet interiors," continued Pelgram, lowering his
voice with mournful impressiveness, "because, forsooth, interiors are
inane, undramatic things unless relieved by color! Not _our_ color, but
the bright, blazing color that roars and raves. Still-lifes they condemn
unless they swim in seas of pure emotion. For with them color is
emotion, emotion color. . . . To be sure, _we_ know better, but I repeat
that a heavy charge is on us. We must march loyally forward, keeping our
banners high. We must go on painting a modest lady, dressed in dark
blue, sitting on a gray chair with a shiny wooden floor beneath her--to
show that these things can sometimes make an artistic harmony worthy of
being translated for all time into a picture that shall never die. What
if this has been done ten thousand times before? The old gods are
jealous gods, and at the ten thousandth time they take their own at last."
"Yes. At last," said Ling Hop, observing that a response was expected of
him.
Pelgram turned to the portrait.
"And this!--portrait painting!--to which all the masters finally turn.
What would _they_--these colorists--make out of portrait painting?"
Evidently his mind recoiled from the thought, for he turned aside with a
gesture of resignation. And Miss Long and Miss Heatherton were never to
know what horrid fate awaited portrait painting at _their_ hands, for
from the rim of the circle came the cheerful voice of Wilkinson:--
"Money, old chap, money. That's what they'd make out of portrait
painting. And after all, that's the only satisfactory standard of
success, established for every school of art--what will the picture
bring? Now isn't that so?"
Pelgram's upper lip drew viciously back from his teeth; Wilkinson,
pleasantly advancing, smiled with content; the flotsam had floated away
as noiselessly as youth; and the artist, collecting his forces to reply,
saw that, except for the two rapt sycophants at his elbow, he was alone.
He laughed a short laugh.
"With many, no doubt it is," he snapped.
His adversary continued his placid progress down the room until he
reached the tea table, where immediately he could be heard inquiring
whether the diminutive "arrangements in green and white" were intended
for lettuce sandwiches.
Pelgram glanced quickly toward where Miss Maitland still sat, surrounded
by her attentive friends. It seemed hardly likely that she could have
missed Charlie's distressing incursion into a monologue to which he had
not been invited, but the girl seemed so wholly occupied that the painter
took heart. His ruffled self-esteem preened itself anew, and he moved
circuitously toward the object of his concern in as disinterested a
manner as he could assume. At the sight of their host, the other members
of Miss Maitland's group took occasion inconspicuously to drift away,
being moved either by hunger or by good nature or by fear lest the
monologue recommence. All but one obtuse youth who neither stirred nor
displayed any tendency so to do.
"Before you go I want to show you that full length of Mrs. Warburton,"
the artist suggested pointedly to Helen. Her only attitude was affable
resignation; she accepted the inevitable as gracefully as possible, and
they strolled across the end of the studio to an alcove where a number of
canvases stood coyly awaiting beholders. Several tall potted plants
nearly hid the alcove from the studio at large, and Pelgram noted with
satisfaction that the remaining guests were mostly grouped about
Wilkinson at the other end. He turned, to gain time for thought, to the
pile of frames in the corner, and presently pulled forth the portrait of
which he had spoken.
"Not so interesting an arrangement as I made of you," he commented.
"I might just as well have been a sandwich," was the girl's immediate
thought, but she replied politely, "No."
"I would certainly have been hopelessly lacking in talent of any sort if
I had not been able to do something really fine from the chance you
offered me," he went on.
Feeling quite uncomfortable and not knowing exactly what to say to this,
Helen said nothing. The artist, assuming that her silence implied her
permission for him to continue, cleared his throat for what he felt
should be a master effort.
"Miss Maitland," he said, regarding her gravely, "it is naturally not for
me to say, but I sincerely believe that your portrait is a work of real
merit. And whatever slight ability I may possess has of course been
freely spent on it. But there is something else to consider--there is
ability, but there is also the element of inspiration, and whatever I may
have lacked in the one you have bountifully given me in the other. If
others should think the portrait a success, I must thank not myself but
you. And beyond the success of the picture itself, which at best can
only be for a day, you have given me what no one ever gave me before--you
must know what that may be."
"You are entirely welcome, I'm sure," his visitor replied, in
considerable embarrassment. It was not exactly what she meant to say,
and the egotism of the artist immediately misconstrued it.
"Helen," he said, "the painting of your portrait has been a perilous
adventure for me. Up to the time I began it, I lived in a world alone,
and I thought only of my art. My model was always a thing wholly
subordinate; after the picture was completed I never cared whether I ever
saw the subject again. But as you came here day after day, my art seemed
of less importance, and you came forward more and more. And finally I
have found that nothing matters--nothing counts--but you."
Miss Maitland did not answer. She was conscious only of wondering
whether she were going to be able to escape from that alcove before she
had expressed to her host her actual opinion of him and all his works,
and she rather feared her powers of repression would prove unequal to the
occasion. And her opinion of him was at its nadir. With unerring
maladroitness Pelgram had chosen the time of all others when his star was
burning with its feeblest flame. She continued to sit passively, while
the waves of the artist's eloquence rolled over her.
"I will not ask you if you love me--it is enough to tell you that I love
you more than all the world. But can you not give me one single word of
hope?"
He paused expectantly.
Helen hesitated. Still persisted the naughty longing to break forth and
say her will, but she knew it would be wrong. After all, there had been
in Pelgram's plea as much genuine sincerity as there could be in anything
of his, and she felt that her wish to be utterly candid was a childish
and unworthy one.
"Mr. Pelgram," she said at length, "if I should give you any hope, it
would be unjust and unkind to you, for I feel that I could never care for
you in the way you wish me to. I respect your ability, but that is not
enough. Please do not speak of this again. You are an artist, and there
ought to be for you enough in the world to keep you happy--even without
me."
Pelgram grew a little pale. To him, who had such difficulty in being
real, this was very real. And seeing it, the girl softened.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really more sorry than I can tell you."
And then she had cause for repentance, for the artist, with an effort,
drew all his pride to aid him. And his proud mood was by no means his
best. The only redeeming feature of the valedictory was that finally it
was over.
Helen, looking a trifle jaded, walked homeward under the escort of Isabel
and Wilkinson. She was quite silent, and Isabel, suspecting trouble,
said little for her part.
Not so Charlie, who held forth fluently, with the exhilaration one feels
on coming out of a hot church and dashing off in a touring car.
"Well," he said, "certain unfriendly persons have studiously circulated
the impression that I am eligible for the Paresis Club--a chucklehead, in
fact. But you will have to admit that I never give Private Views. You
must concede that I do not inflict on my friends my opinions about crude
color. Why, there must be several hundred things I don't do!"
"Thank Heaven you don't!" remarked Miss Maitland.