"Alone on a desert island?"
"Life-saving stations are not generally on desert islands; but I hope you wouldn"t mind so very much if it were."
She looked at him with bright eyes, and then let her glance fall.
"That would depend," she responded demurely.
"Upon what? How I behaved?"
"Oh, of course you"d behave well."
"Of course; but how would I have to behave to make you contented on a desert island?"
She shot him a keen quick glance from beneath her bent brows.
"I never said I should be contented."
"But you implied it."
She whirled her m.u.f.f over and over upon her two hands like the wheel of a squirrel cage, regarding it intently with her pretty head on one side.
"No, I didn"t imply it either. I don"t believe I could be contented."
"Not even with me?"
She flushed, but evidently not with displeasure.
"Why with you more than anybody else?" she softly inquired, with great apparent artlessness.
"Because," he began, "I should"--He was going to add, "be so fond of you," but reflected that this was perhaps going a little too fast and too far, and concluded instead--"take such good care of you."
Perhaps it was because approaching footsteps sounded on the stairs below them; perhaps it was because her subtile feminine sense appreciated the fact that he was on his guard; but for some reason or for no reason she tossed her head and rose to her feet.
"I am fortunately not obliged to go so far as a desert island to get taken care of," she said.
Her companion was not unwilling that the talk should be broken in upon.
He smiled to himself as he followed her lead, and in a moment more he was knocking at the door of Fenton"s studio, which was well up toward the roof. There was no response, and, as Fred rapped the second time, a carpenter who was at work on the casing of a door near by looked up, and said,--
"Mr. Fenton has a sitter, sir."
"He is in then?" said Rangely.
"Yes," answered John Stanton, straightening himself up, with his plane in his hand, "but since Mrs. Herman went in half an hour ago, he hasn"t opened the door to anybody."
"Mrs. Herman?" echoed Rangely, in astonishment.
"Yes, sir."
It was a capricious fate which brought John Stanton to tangle the web of Fenton"s life. His brother Orin"s relations with artists had given John a sort of acquaintanceship with them at second-hand, a kind of vicarious proprietorship in the privileges of art circles. He had long known Fenton by sight, while that he recognized Mrs. Herman also was the result of accident. He had been standing with Orin a few days before on a street corner, when the sculptor had lifted his hat to Mrs.
Herman and named her in answer to John"s question. There had not been in his honest mind the faintest tinge of suspicion when he saw her enter the studio, and he never had any intimation of the mischief he had clone in mentioning her name to Rangely.
Fred and Miss Merrivale went on to Tom Bentley"s curio-crowded rooms, while the sound of their knock still lingered in the double ears of the two people who sat confronting each other within the studio, with looks on the one hand sullen; on the other, pleading. Fenton"s picture of _Fatima_ was finished, yet Ninitta continued to come to the studio. His brief pa.s.sion, which had been more than half mere intellectual curiosity how far his power over the Italian could go, had ended with that curiosity. In its place was a gradually increasing hatred for this woman, who seemed to a.s.sert a claim upon him, this model whom he never had loved, and whom he could now scarcely tolerate, since he had ceased to respect her. He cursed himself vehemently after the fashion of such offenders, when eager, vibrating pa.s.sion has given place to a sense of irksome obligations, but more vigorously still did he upbraid fate, to whose score he set down all annoyance.
As for Ninitta, she, perhaps, no more truly loved Fenton than he had cared for her, but she clung to him as a frightened child might clutch the arm of one with whom it has wandered into the darkness of some vault beset with pitfalls. Ninitta"s moral sense was of the most rudimentary character. She was, perhaps, incapable of appreciating an ethical principle, and her spiritual life never soared beyond the crudest emotions and the simplest questions of personal feeling. She had come to live without the guidance of a priest, and this fact, in itself, had left her without moral support. She had now no particular consciousness of having done wrong, although she was moved by the fear of the consequences of the discovery of her transgression.
It has been said that Ninitta"s affection for her husband might have been more enduring had he been less gentle with her. She came of a race of peasants whose women understood masculine superiority in the old brutal, physical sense, and whenever Herman bore patiently with his wife"s caprices he lessened a respect which he could have retained only at the expense of a blow. With all Arthur Fenton"s soft and caressing ways toward Ninitta, there was always an instinctive masterfulness in his att.i.tude toward any woman and especially since he had tired of her did he keep Mrs. Herman figuratively at his feet. The more strongly her appealing att.i.tude seemed to press upon him claims which he could not satisfy and had no mind to acknowledge, the more harsh he became, and the more she bent before him. The language of brutality was one which she Understood by inherited instinct.
"But why," Fenton was saying impatiently, when Rangely"s knock startled them, "do you come here, when I haven"t sent for you? There"s somebody at the door, now, and we haven"t even the shadow of an excuse, since the picture is done."
"I wanted to see you," Ninitta answered humbly, her plain face working with her effort to keep back the tears. "It is so lonely at home, and they take even Nino away from me."
The artist started up impatiently, and took his wet palette from the stand beside him.
"Well!" he said, answering as she had spoken, in Italian, "you must be anxious that your husband shall know of your coming here, or you would not take such pains to have him find it out."
He began painting sullenly, putting in the last touches upon the background of the portrait of a beautiful girl. The lovely face of Damaris Wainwright, so pathetic, so pure, and so n.o.ble, looking at him from the canvas stung him inwardly into an impotent fury. His fine sense of the fitness of things was outraged by the presence of Ninitta beside the spiritual personality which shone upon him from the portrait. He could even feel the incongruity between himself and his work, though this appealed to his sense of humor as the other aroused his anger.
Ninitta watched in silence a moment; then she rose from her seat, her wrap falling away from her shoulders. Her tears were done, and a white look of intense feeling showed the despair that she felt. All the isolation which tortured her, that pain which souls like hers, blind, groping, and helpless, are least able to bear, had left its stamp upon her. Perhaps even her sin had been a desperate and only half-conscious attempt once more to draw in sympathy really near a human heart. She had learned little from the changed conditions into which the fates of her life had brought her, but she had been separated, in mind no less than in body, from her own kind without being fitted for other companionship. She was utterly and fatally alone, and a terrible sense of her remoteness from all human fellowship smote her now at Arthur"s cruelty. She hesitated an instant, supporting herself by the arms of the big carved chair in which she had been sitting; then, with an impulsive gesture, she threw her arms above her head, wringing her hands together.
"Oh, my G.o.d!" she cried, "what shall I do?"
Fenton turned quickly toward her.
"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" was his inward comment; "what a divine pose! What a glorious figure! But ah, how tiresome she is!" Then, aloud, he said: "Come, come, don"t be foolish, Ninitta! You know as well as I do that there is no danger, if you are only careful."
And putting aside his palette again, he soothed her with soft words until she was calm enough to be sent home.
When she was gone, he shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his hands with a deprecatory gesture.
"After all," he soliloquized aloud, "it is difficult for civilization to get on without the sultan"s sack and bowstring."
XXV
AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT.
Henry VIII.; i.--3.
The announcement by the Secretary of the St. Filipe Club that a vote of censure had been pa.s.sed upon Fenton had not only caused a tempest of excitement, but had brought about the unexpected result of eliciting testimony to prove that the charge against him was without foundation.
Men came forward to testify that Snaffle entered the club alone on the evening when Fenton was said to have brought him there, while Tom Bently, Ainsworth, and others had seen the artist come in afterward, and had spoken with him before he went upstairs with Fred Rangely to the card-room. The Executive Committee found itself in a most awkward predicament, and its members took what comfort they could in pitching upon the Secretary, who had, without authorization, announced the vote of censure on the call for the monthly meeting. He was now directed to write to Mr. Fenton a letter of apology, which he did with such small grace as he could command, taking the precaution to mark the note "confidential."
The artist experienced more than a feeling of conscious virtue at being thus exonerated from a fault which he had committed; and it was with mingled glee and a certain dare-devil desperation that he resolved upon his own course of action.
The monthly meeting of the St. Filipe came on the evening of the day when Mrs. Staggchase gave her luncheon. By a misunderstanding of Fenton"s wishes, his wife had invited friends to dine that night. He meant to excuse himself after dinner and go to the club for a short time, returning to his guests after he had said a few words upon which he had determined.
The guests were Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Hubbard, Helen Greyson, Ethel Mott, Miss Catherine Penwick, Thayer Kent, the Rev. De Lancy Candish, and Fred Rangely. It was wholly by chance, and without malicious intent that Edith a.s.signed Ethel to Mr. Kent, while Rangely took Mrs. Greyson in to dinner. Mrs. Fenton, of course, knew that gossip had sometimes connected the names of Ethel and Rangely in a speculative way, but she partly suspected and partly knew by feminine intuition that Fred was practically out of the running, and that Ethel"s heart was given to Thayer Kent. It was hardly to be expected that Rangely should be pleased at the sight of his rival"s advantage; but having pa.s.sed the morning in squiring Miss Merrivale, his conscience was hardly case-hardened enough to have made him at his ease had he been able to exchange places with Kent.