The Pagans Part 27

She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent pa.s.sion, and, indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if unmixed with some desire to escape from him.

All sorts of artistic rubbish had acc.u.mulated in the little gallery; broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored marble, and the thousand objects which make up the _debris_ of a sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the white-plaster G.o.ddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids danced in immortal glee.

"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?"

"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated.

"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar--it is a Hymeneal altar, they say--and said I would pour a libation upon it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough."

He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored marble, resting upon the altar.

"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed up ever since until--until recently."

However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to what the question might lead, she asked:

"And recently?"

"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me."

He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion in an abstracted, impersonal way.

"To remind you?" she in turn echoed.

"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair."

She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face.

"But you removed it here."

"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves--the amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of sight."

She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words:

"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see mirrored in it."

"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly.

"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible."

"But facts are such achromatic gla.s.ses."

To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the sculptor carefully removed.

A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling with the limpness of death. About the n.o.ble, lifeless head were bent and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly destroyed.

Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her eyes.

"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure.

Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the pedestal, and she saw the words:

"I strew these opiate flowers Round thy restless pillow."

Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the face of the tall form beside her.

"But he is dead," she murmured at length.

"It seems so," he a.s.sented.

She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white.

"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton--Dr.

Ashton."

"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton, Teuton's friend?"

"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have told you, but I could not bear--Oh," she cried, breaking off her sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!"

"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you been told?"

"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?"

"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?"

"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?"

"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was possible to soften the blow. "He is dead."

"Dead!"

Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a lifeless warrior.

A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when confronted by the irremediable--as if some blame must be taken for the acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her.

Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of his suffering she might more strongly--A sudden thought pierced her like a knife.

"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly.

"Of heart disease."

So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were truth.

"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta."

When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr.

Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it before the gla.s.s, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, like the life of him whose last act had been their forming:

"DEATH FOILS THE G.o.dS."