Least of all, in asking the Italian to pose, had Fenton been actuated by any intention of tempting her to evil. He needed a model for the _Fatima_ as he needed his canvas and brushes; and his satisfaction at having induced Ninitta to serve his purpose was in kind much the same as his pleasure that his brushes and canvas were exactly what he wanted.
But it is always difficult to tell to what an action may lead; and most of all is it hard to foresee the consequences which will follow from the violation of principle. Perhaps the air of secrecy with which Ninitta found it necessary to invest her coming, had an intoxicating effect upon the artist; perhaps it was simply that his persistent egotism moved him to test his power. Men often feel the keenest curiosity in regard to the extent of their ability to commit crimes into which they have yet not the remotest intention of being betrayed; and especially is this true in their relations to women. Men of a certain vanity are always eager to discover how great an influence for evil they could exercise over women, even when they have not the nerve or the wickedness to exert it. A man must be morally great to be above finding pleasure in the belief that he could be a Don Juan if he chose; and moral grandeur was not for Arthur Fenton.
From whatever cause, the fact was, that as he painted this morning and reflected, with a complacency of which he was too keen an a.n.a.lyst not to know he should have been ashamed, how he had secured the model he desired despite her husband, the speculation came into his mind how far he could push his influence over Ninitta. At first a mere impersonal idea, the thought was instantly, by his habit of mental definiteness, realized so clearly that his cheek flushed, partly, it is to be said to his credit, with genuine shame. He looked at the beautiful model, and turned away his eyes. Then, hardly conscious of what he was doing, he laid down his palette, and took a step forward.
At that instant the studio bell rang sharply. He started with so terrible a sense of being discovered in a crime, that his jaw trembled and his knees almost failed under him.
Then instantly he recovered his self-possession, although his heart was beating painfully, and looked up at the clock.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea how late it was! It is that beastly Irons for his last sitting. I"d forgotten all about him."
Ninitta rose from her position and hurried toward the screen behind which she dressed.
"Don"t let him in," she said. "He knows me."
The bell rang again, as they stood looking at each other.
"I will try to send him off," Arthur said. "Dress as quickly as you can."
She retreated behind the screen while he went to the door and unlocked it. Instantly Irons stepped inside.
"You must excuse me," the artist said. "I"ll be ready for you in fifteen minutes. I have a model here, and got to painting so busily that I forgot the time. Come back in a quarter of an hour."
"Oh, I don"t mind," Irons said, advancing into the studio. "I"ll look round until you are ready."
"But I never admit sitters when I have a model," Fenton protested, standing before him. "I shall have to ask you to go."
The other stopped and looked at the artist with suspicion in his eyes.
"What a fuss you make," he commented coa.r.s.ely. "No intrigue, I suppose?"
A hot flush sprang into Fenton"s face. He tried to a.s.sume a haughty air, but the consciousness of being entrapped in a misdemeanor had not left him. The need of getting Mrs. Herman out of the studio unseen would have been awkward at any time; when to this was added the sense of guilt and shame which was begotten of the base impulse to which he had almost yielded, the situation became for him painfully embarra.s.sing.
"I am not in the habit of carrying on intrigues with my models," he replied, haughtily. "Or," he added, regaining self-possession, "of discussing my affairs with others."
Mr. Irons laughed in a significant way which made Arthur long to kill him on the spot, and, stepping past Fenton, he walked further into the studio.
"Don"t put on airs with me," he said. "Your looks give you away. You"ve been up to some mischief."
He paused an instant before the unfinished picture on the easel, then when the artist coolly took the canvas and placed it with its face to the wall, he turned with deliberate rudeness and craned his neck so that he could look behind the screen. A leering smile came over his coa.r.s.e features. Without a word he went over to the most distant corner of the studio, where he apparently became absorbed in studying a sketch hanging on the wall.
There was a dead silence of some moments. Fenton was literally speechless with rage, yet, too, his quick wit was busy devising some way of escape from the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself. He did not speak, nor did Mr. Irons turn until Ninitta had completed her toilet and slipped hastily out. As the door closed after her, Irons wheeled about and confronted the indignant artist with a smile of triumphant glee.
"Sly dog!" he said.
Fenton advanced a step toward his tormentor with his clenched hand half raised as if he would strike.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Do you call yourself a gentleman?"
"Oh, come, now," the other responded, with an easy wave of the hand, "no heroics, if you please. They won"t go down with me. She"s a devilish fine woman, and I don"t blame you."
"I tell you," began Fenton, "you"--
"Oh, of course, of course. I know all that. But sit down while I say something to you."
As if under the constraining influence of a nightmare, Fenton obeyed when Mr. Irons, having seated himself in an easy chair, waved him into another with a commanding gesture. The artist felt himself to have lost his place as the stronger of the two, of which he had hitherto been proudly conscious, and he sat angrily gnawing his lip while his tormentor regarded him with smiling malice.
"Do you remember telling me one day," Irons asked, fixing his narrow eyes on the other"s disturbed face, "that you could make your sitters tell you things?"
Fenton stared at his questioner in angry silence, but did not answer.
"Now, if," continued Irons; "I say if, you observe,--if Stewart Hubbard should chance to tell you where the new syndicate mean to locate their mills, it might be a mighty good thing for you."
Still Fenton said nothing, but his regard became each moment more wrathful.
"Of course," the sitter continued, with an a.s.sumption of airy lightness which grated on every nerve of the hearer, "you are not in a position to turn such knowledge to advantage; but I am, and I am always inclined to help a bright fellow like you when there is a good chance. So if you should come to me and say that the mills are to be so and so, I"d do all I could to make things pleasant for you. I happen to belong to a syndicate myself that has bought a mill privilege at Wachusett, and it is important to us to have the new railroad go our way, and we"d like to know how far the other fellows" plans are dangerous to our interests, don"t you see."
Still Fenton did not speak. He had grown very pale, and his lips were set firmly together. His hands clasped the arms of his chair so strongly that the blood had settled under the middle of the nails. Mr.
Irons looked at him with narrow, piercing eyes. He paused a moment and then went on.
"You are perfectly capable of keeping a secret," he said in a hard, deliberate tone, "so I don"t in the least mind telling you what we should do. Your sitters always tell you things, you know; and you are to be trusted. The case is here; our syndicate stand in with the railroad corporation and ask the Railroad Commissioners for a certificate of exigency, to authorize laying the new branch out through Wachusett. Now we have information that Staggchase and Stewart Hubbard and that set, are planning to spring a pet.i.tion asking for special legislation locating the road somewhere else. Of course, they"ll have to get it in under a suspension of the rules, but they can work that easily enough. The Commissioners will have to hold on, then, until the Legislature finishes with that pet.i.tion."
He paused again, with an air which convinced the artist that he was going on with this elaborate explanation to cover his awkwardness.
Fenton did not speak, and his visitor continued,--
"The Commissioners might settle the matter now, but they won"t, and we"ve got to have the fight, I suppose; so, of course, you can see how it is for our interest to know just what we are fighting."
He rose as he spoke, and with an air of deliberation, b.u.t.toned his overcoat, which he had not removed.
"I don"t think you feel like painting this morning," he observed, "and I"ll come in again. I"ll leave you to think over what I have said."
Fenton rose also, regarding him with fierce, level eyes.
"And suppose," he said, "that I call you a d.a.m.ned scoundrel, and forbid you ever to set foot in my studio again?"
The other laughed, with the easy a.s.surance of a bully who feels himself secure.
"Oh, you won"t," he replied. "If you did,--well, I am on the committee for the new statue, and have to see Herman now and then you know, and I should, perhaps, ask him why his wife poses for you. Good morning."
And with a chuckling laugh, he took himself out.
VIII
A NECESSARY EVIL.
Julius Caesar; ii.--2.