They looked at each other in silence a moment. To disband seemed like an acknowledgment of defeat. Many another band of ardent souls has known the feeling, with its dreary ache, although it oftener happens that a circle of this kind disappears by the gradual dropping away of its numbers one by one rather than that its members are brought face to face with the necessity of owning that its existence had resulted in failure. Whatever their faults and extravagances, whatever their errors and intolerance, they were sincere, self sacrificing and ardent beyond the men who made up the world about them; a group of eager lovers of truth and art who had been drawn together by mutual aims and enthusiasms. Their fierceness had been in defense of honesty and sincerity, their disinterestedness was attested by the fact that any one of them might have made his peace with Philistia and been rewarded for his complaisance had he so chosen. Doubtless they had their faults and foibles, yet their comradeship, in its essential purport had been true and n.o.ble.
They in no wise abandoned their aims in agreeing with the proposition to disband, but about their fellowship had been a certain un-phrased tenderness, at which, if put in word, any one of them might have scoffed, yet which nevertheless they all felt strongly in their secret hearts, and all were conscious that after this defection of Fenton, the circle could never be perfect again. They did not discuss the matter now, but in the interval of silence each acknowledged to himself that to disband was best; and briefly each gave his a.s.sent; all soberly, some almost gruffly.
And so it came about that the G.o.ddess Pasht lost her last band of followers, and the Pagans a.s.sembled no more forever.
x.x.xVI.
AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND.
Merchant of Venice; v.--2.
"Very likely you cannot see it," Arthur Fenton said, striking in the background of a portrait with vicious roughness. "Women and brutes differ from men in lacking reason; if you were logical you"d see."
"See that you are right in selling your convictions for patronage,"
Helen returned gravely, ignoring the insult. "Then I am glad I am not logical."
"If you choose to put it that way," he retorted doggedly, "I must still say yes."
It was Friday morning, and Helen was to sail the next day. She had come to Fenton"s studio to bid him good-by, knowing that they should have that to say which could not be freely spoken before Edith, and yet not choosing to have him come to her own house without his wife.
"Poverty," he went on aggressively, "is nature"s protest against civilization, and still more against art. I am bound to fight nature on her own ground, am I not?"
"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote Scripture upon life"s being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must be a protest against dominant Philistinism; n.o.body has ever acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have."
"But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to win society? Society is ready enough to take them in."
"Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, "every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism." Patronage seems already to have sucked the life out of you."
"You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot make me angry."
"That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is your fault."
"The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, "oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself."
He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the building, and removed the j.a.panese umbrella which served as its screen.
He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite.
"_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment"s silence.
"You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don"t know why you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, Philistines or not. Even the G.o.dly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling the Egyptians."
"But that was in departing from their country."
"We won"t argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don"t expect you to think I"m right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself.
You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I am able."
She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith"s relatives seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing.
"But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not her honesty rebuke you? Don"t you feel unworthy of her?"
"Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?"
"You are speaking of your wife!"
"_C"est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or of any woman is that my pa.s.sion for her will be eternal, and I am long ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime?
Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example."
"It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin"s smirk in every brush mark of your canvas there!"
For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat upright in his cushions and faced her.
"Well," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with the Philistines!"
He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off some disgusting touch.
"I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, "far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my G.o.d! Helen, how I would like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes me beautifully."
He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait contemptuously.
"Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me.
The G.o.ds in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don"t enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, she is a jade that can"t give her lovers even a fire to sit by while they woo her. I"m sorry for her, but I don"t see clearly how I can help her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I"ve made friends with the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you choose."
He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose as he finished.
"Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race."
"But I acknowledge my faults."
"Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment is not reparation, though many try to make it so."
She walked towards the door, but he reached it first and laid his hand upon the latch.
"You are going away," he said. "Who knows when we shall ever meet again. At least remember that I condemn myself as sharply as you can."
"That is the degradation of it," was her retort, her eyes blazing at him. "If you could plead ignorance, I could pity you."
"Edith is a saint," he went on, not heeding, "but her good is my evil.
I do not plead it as an excuse; I have and I want no excuse: but it is true that temptation could come to me in no shape so insidious as through her sincerity."
"Then you will be honest!" pleaded Helen.
"I do not say that. I think I shall go on as I am; but I have changed my idea of my epitaph. It shall be only the word "Pardon.""
"Your old one was better," she retorted stingingly, "and better than either would be a blank! Let me pa.s.s!"