While this ecclesiastical idyl was painting and singing itself in itsown way, blind and deaf to the realities of life, this life moved on inits accustomed course undisturbed by idyls. The morning's task wasalways finished at one o'clock. At that hour, if the weather was fine,Mr. Dudley commonly stopped at the church door to take them away, andthe rest of the day was given up to society. Esther and Catherine drove,made calls, dined out, went to balls, to the theater and opera, withoutinterrupting their professional work. Under Mrs. Murray's potentinfluence, Catherine glided easily into the current of society andbecame popular without an effort. She soon had admirers. One young man,of an excellent and very old Dutch family, Mr. Rip Van Dam, took amarked fancy for her. Mr. Van Dam knew nothing of her, except that shewas very pretty and came from Colorado where she had been brought up tolike horses, and could ride almost any thing that would not buck itssaddle off. This was quite enough for Mr. Van Dam whose taste for horseswas more decided than for literature or art. He took Catherine to drivewhen the sleighing was good, and was flattered by her enthusiasticadmiration of his beautiful pair of fast trotters. His confidence in herbecame boundless when he found that she could drive them quite as wellas he. His success in winning her affections would have been greater ifCatherine had not found his charms incessantly counteracted by thesociety of the older and more intelligent men, whom she never met atballs, but whom she saw every morning at the church, and whose tastesand talk struck her imagination. She liked Mr. Van Dam, but she laughedat him, which proved a thoughtless mind, for neither artists, clergymennor professors were likely to marry her, as this young man might perhapshave done, under sufficient encouragement. When, towards the first ofJanuary, Catherine left Mrs. Murray, in order to stay with Esther, forgreater convenience in the church work, Mr. Van Dam's attentions ratherfell off. He was afraid of Esther, whom he insisted on regarding asclever, although Esther took much care never to laugh at him, for fearof doing mischief.
Catherine learned to play whist in order to amuse Mr. Dudley. They hadsmall dinners, at which Hazard was sometimes present, and more oftenStrong, until he was obliged to go West to deliver a course of lecturesat St. Louis. In spite of Mr. Dudley's supposed dislike for clergymen,he took kindly to Hazard and made no objection to his becoming a tamecat about the house. To make up a table at whist, Hazard did not refuseto take a hand; and said it was a part of his parochial duty. Mr. Dudleylaughed and told him that if he performed the rest of his parochialduties equally ill, the parish should give him a year's leave of absencefor purposes of study. Mr. Dudley disliked nothing so much as to betreated like an invalid, or to be serious, and Hazard gratified him bylaughing at the doctors. They got on wonderfully well together, to theincreasing amazement of Esther.
Card-playing and novel-reading were not the only cases in which Mr.Hazard took a liberal view of his functions. His theology belonged tothe high-church school, and in the pulpit he made no compromise with thespirit of concession, but in all ordinary matters of indifference or ofinnocent pleasure he gave the rein to his instincts, and in regard toart he was so full of its relations with religion that he would admit ofno divergence between the two. Art and religion might take greatliberties with each other, and both be the better for it, as he thought.
His thirteenth-century ideas led him into a curious experiment which wasquite in the thirteenth-century spirit. Catherine's insatiable spirit ofcoquetry was to blame, although it was not with him that she coquetted.Ready enough to try her youthful powers on most men, she had seemed torecognize by instinct that Mr. Hazard did not belong to her. Yet shecould not rest satisfied without putting even him to some useful purposeof her own.
During Hazard's visits to the scaffold, he sometimes took up a penciland drew. Once he drew a sketch of Wharton in the character of a monkwith his brush and pallet in his hands. Catherine asked what connectionthere was between Mr. Wharton and a monastery.
"None!" replied Mr. Hazard; "but I like to think of church work as doneby churchmen. In the old days he would have been a monk and would havepainted himself among these figures on the walls."
Esther ventured to criticise Wharton's style; she thought it severe,monotonous, and sometimes strained.
"Wharton's real notion of art," said Hazard, "is a volcano. You may be avolcano at rest, or extinct, or in full eruption, but a volcano of somekind you have got to be. In one of his violent moods he once made me goover to Sicily with him, and dragged me to the top of Etna. Itfascinated him, and I thought he meant to jump into it and pull me afterhim, but at that time he was a sort of used-up volcano himself."
"Then there is really something mysterious about his life?" askedCatherine.
"Only that he made a very unhappy marriage which he dislikes to thinkabout," replied Hazard. "As an artist it did him good, but it ruined hispeace and comfort, if he ever had any. He would never have made themistake, if he had not been more ignorant of the world than any mortalthat ever drew breath, but, as I was saying, a volcano was like arattlesnake to him, and the woman he married was a volcano."
"What has become of her?" asked Esther.
"I have not dared to ask for years. No one seems to know whether she isliving or dead."
"Did he leave her?"
"No; she left him. He was to the last fascinated by her, so much sothat, after she left him, when I persuaded him to quit Paris, heinsisted on going to Avignon and Vaucluse, because Petrarch had beenunder the same sort of fascination, and Wharton thought himself the onlyman in the world who could understand Petrarch. If you want to insulthim and make him bitterly hate you, tell him that Laura was a marriedwoman with a dozen children."
"Who was Laura?" asked Catherine; "and why should she not have a dozenchildren?"
"Laura was a beautiful girl with golden hair and a green dress whomPetrarch first saw in a church at Avignon," answered Hazard. "She waspainted among the frescoes of the cathedral, as you are being paintednow, Miss Brooke; and Petrarch wrote some hundreds of sonnets about herwhich Wharton undertook to translate, and made me help him. We wereboth poets then."
"I want to hear those sonnets," said Catherine, quite seriously, asthough the likeness between herself and Laura had struck her as the mostnatural thing in the world. "Can you remember them?"
"I think I could. Don't find fault with me if you dislike the moral. Iapprove it because, like Petrarch, I am a bit of a churchman, but Idon't know what you may think of a lover who begins by putting hismistress on the same footing with his deity and ends by groaning overthe time he has thrown away on her."
"Not to her face?" said Esther.
"Worse! He saw her in church and wrote to her face something like this:
'As sight of God is the eternal life, Nor more we ask, nor more to wish we dare, So, lady, sight of thee,'
and so on, or words to that effect. Yet after she was dead he said hehad wasted his life in loving her. I remember the whole of the sonnetbecause it cost me two days' labor in the railway between Avignon andNice. It runs like this:--
'For my lost life lamenting now I go, Which I have placed in loving mortal thing, Soaring to no high flight, although the wing Had strength to rise and loftier sweep to show. Oh! Thou that seest my mean life and low! Invisible! Immortal! Heaven's king! To this weak, pathless spirit, succor bring, And on its earthly faults thy grace bestow! That I, who lived in tempest and in fear, May die in port and peace; and if it be That life was vain, at least let death be dear! In these few days that yet remain to me, And in death's terrors, may thy hand be near! Thou knowest that I have no hope but thee!'
In the Italian this is very great poetry, Miss Brooke, and if you don'tthink it so in my English, try and see if you can do better."
"Very well," said Catherine, coolly. "I've no doubt we can do it just aswell as you and Mr. Wharton. Can't we, Esther?"
"You are impudent enough to make St. Cecilia blush," said Esther, whohappened to be wondering whether she might dare to put a little blushinto the cheeks of the figure on which she was painting. "You never reada word of Italian in your little life."
"No! But you have!" replied Catherine, as though this were final.
"The libretto of Lucia!" said Esther with scorn.
"No matter!" resumed Catherine. "Bring me the books, Mr. Hazard, and Iwill translate one of those sonnets if I have to shut up Esther in adark closet."
"Catherine! Don't make me ridiculous!" said Esther; but Catherine wasinspired by an idea, and would not be stopped.
"Bring me the volume now, Mr. Hazard! You shall have your sonnet forSunday's sermon."
"Don't do it, Mr. Hazard!" exhorted Esther solemnly. "It is one of herColorado jokes. She does not know what a sonnet is. She thinks it somekind of cattle-punching."
"If I do not give you that sonnet," cried Catherine, "I will give youleave to have me painted as much like an old skeleton as Mr. Whartonchooses."
"Done!" said Hazard, who regarded this as at least one point worthgaining. "You shall have the books. I want to see Wharton's triumph."
"But if I do poetry for you," continued Catherine, "you must do paintingfor me."
"Very well!" said Hazard. "What shall it be?"
"If I am Laura," said Catherine, "I must have a Petrarch. I want you toput him up here on the wall, looking at me, as he did in the churchwhere he first saw me."
"But what will Wharton and the committee say?" replied Hazard, startledat so monstrous a demand.
"I don't believe Mr. Wharton will object," answered Catherine. "He willbe flattered. Don't you see? He is to be Petrarch."
"Oh!" cried Hazard, with a stare. "Now I understand. You want me topaint Wharton as a scriptural character looking across to Miss Dudley'sCecilia."
"You are very slow!" said Catherine. "I think you might have seen itwithout making me tell you."
To a low-church evangelical parson this idea might have seemedinexpressibly shocking, but there was something in it which, after amoment's reflection, rather pleased Hazard. It was the sort of thingwhich the Florentines did, and there was hardly an early church in Italyabout whose walls did not cling the colors of some such old union of artand friendship in the service of religion. Catherine's figure wasalready there. Why not place Wharton's by its side and honor the artistwho had devoted so large a share of his life to the service of thechurch, with, it must be confessed, a very moderate share of worldlyprofit. The longer Hazard thought of it, the less he saw to oppose. Histastes were flattered by the idea of doing something with his own handthat should add to the character and meaning of the building. Hisimagination was so pleased with the notion that at last he gave hisconsent:--"Very well, Miss Brooke! I will draw a figure for this nextvacant space, and carry it as far as I know how. If Wharton objects hecan efface it. But Miss Dudley will have to finish it for me, for Ican't paint, and Wharton would certainly stop me if I tried."
Although this pretty bargain which seemed so fair, really threw onEsther the whole burden of writing sonnets and painting portraits forthe amusement of Catherine and Mr. Hazard, Catherine begged so hard thatshe at last consented to do her best, and her consent so much delightedHazard that he instantly searched his books for a model to work from,and as soon as he found one to answer his purpose, he began withEsther's crayons to draw the cartoon of a large figure which was topreserve under the character of St. Luke the memory of Wharton'sfeatures. When Wharton came next to inspect Esther's work, he was toldthat Mr. Hazard wished to try his hand on designing a figure for thevacant space, and he criticised and corrected it as freely as the rest.For such a task Hazard was almost as competent as Wharton, from themoment the idea was once given, and in this dark corner it matteredlittle whether a conventional saint were more or less correct.
Meanwhile Catherine carried off a copy of Petrarch, and instantly turnedit over to Esther, seeming to think it a matter of course that sheshould do so trifling a matter as a sonnet with ease. "It won't take youfive minutes if you put your mind to it," she said. "You can do anything you like, and any one could make a few rhymes." Esther, willing toplease her, tried, and exhausted her patience on the first three lines.Then Catherine told the story to Mr. Dudley, who was so much amused byher ambition that he gave his active aid, and between them theysucceeded in helping Esther to make out a sonnet which Mr. Dudleydeclared to be quite good enough for Hazard. This done, Esther refusedto mix further in the matter, and made Catherine learn her verses byheart. The young woman found this no easy task, but when she thoughtherself perfect she told Mr. Hazard, as she would have told aschoolmaster, that she was ready with her sonnet.
"I have finished the sonnet, Mr. Hazard," she said one morning in abashful voice, as though she were again at school.
"Where is it, Miss Brooke?"
Then Catherine, drawing herself up, with her hands behind her, began torecite:
"Oh, little bird! singing upon your way, Or mourning for your pleasant summer-tide, Seeing the night and winter at your side, The joyous months behind, and sunny day! If, as you know your own pathetic lay, You knew as well the sorrows that I hide, Nestling upon my breast, you would divide Its weary woes, and lift their load away. I know not that our shares would then be even, For she you mourn may yet make glad your sight, While against me are banded death and heaven; But now the gloom of winter and of night With thoughts of sweet and bitter years for leaven, Lends to my talk with you a sad delight."
Esther laughed till the tears rolled down her face at the droll effectof these tenderly sentimental verses in Catherine's mouth, but Hazardtook it quite seriously and was so much delighted with Catherine'srecitation that he insisted on her repeating it to Wharton, who took iteven more seriously than he. Hazard knew that the verses were Esther's,and was not disposed to laugh at them. Wharton saw that Catherine cameout with new beauties in every r鬺e she filled, and already wanted touse her as a model for some future frescoed Euterpe. Esther was drivento laugh alone.
Petrarch and Laura are dangerous subjects of study for young people in achurch. Wharton and Hazard knew by heart scores of the sonnets, and werefond of repeating verses either in the original or in their owntranslations, and Esther soon picked up what they let fall, being quickat catching what was thrown to her. She caught verse after verse ofHazard's favorites, and sometimes he could hear her murmuring as shepainted:
"Siccome eterna vita ?veder dio, N?pi?si brama, n?bramar piu lice;"
and at such moments he began to think that he was himself Petrarch, andthat to repeat to his Laura the next two verses of the sonnet had becomethe destiny of his life.
So the weeks ran on until, after a month of hard work, the last days ofJanuary saw the two figures nearly completed. When in due time themeaning of St. Luke became evident, Esther and Catherine waited in fearto see how Wharton would take the liberty on which they had so rashlyventured. As the likeness came out more strongly, he stopped one morningbefore it, when Esther, after finishing her own task, was working on Mr.Hazard's design.
"By our lady of love!" said Wharton, with a start and a laugh; "now Isee what mischief you three have been at!"
"The church would not have been complete without it," said Esthertimidly.
For several minutes Wharton looked in silence at the St. Cecilia and atthe figure which now seemed its companion; then he said, turning away:"I shall not be the first unworthy saint the church has canonized."
Esther drew a long breath of relief; Catherine started up, radiant withdelight; and thus it happens that on the walls of St. John's, high abovethe world of vanities beneath them, Wharton stands, and will stand forages, gazing at Catherine Brooke.
Now that the two saints were nearly finished, Esther became a littledepressed. This church life, like a bit of religious Bohemianism andacted poetry, had amused her so greatly that she found her own smallstudio dull. She could no longer work there without missing the space,the echoes, the company, and above all, the sense of purpose, which shefelt on her scaffolding. She complained to Wharton of her feminine wantof motive in life.
"I wish I earned my living," she said. "You don't know what it is towork without an object."
"Much of the best work in the world," said he, "has been done with nomotive of gain."
"Men can do so many things that women can't," said she. "Men like towork alone. Women cannot work without company. Do you like solitude?"
"I would like to own a private desert," he answered, "and live alone inthe middle of it with lions and tigers to eat intruders."
"You need not go so far," said she. "Take my studio!"
"With you and Miss Brooke in the neighborhood? Never!"
"We will let you alone. In a week you will put your head out of the doorand say: 'Please come and play jack-straws with me!'"
Catherine was not pleased at the thought that her usefulness was at anend. She had no longer a part to play unless it were that of duenna toEsther, and for this she was not so well fitted as she might have been,had providence thought proper to make her differently. Indeed, Esther'sanxiety to do her duty as duenna to Catherine was becoming so sharp thatit threatened to interfere with the pleasure of both. Catherine did herbest to give her friend trouble.
"Please rub me all out, Mr. Wharton," said she; "and make Esther beginagain. I am sure she will do it better the next time."
Wharton was quite ready to find an excuse for pleasing her. If it was attimes a little annoying to have two women in his way whom he could notcontrol as easily as ordinary work-people, he had become so used to therestraint as not to feel it often, and not to regard it much. Estherthought he need not distress himself by thinking that he regarded it atall. Had not Catherine been so anxious to appear as the most docile andobedient of hand-maids besides being the best-tempered of prairiecreatures, she would long ago have resented his habit of first petting,then scolding, next ignoring, and again flattering her, as his moodhappened to prompt. He was more respectful with Esther, and kept out ofher way when he was moody, while she made it a rule never to leave herown place of work unless first invited, but Catherine, who was much byhis side, got used to ill-treatment which she bore with angelicmeekness. When she found herself left forgotten in a corner, orunanswered when she spoke, or unnoticed when she bade him good-morning,she consoled herself with reflecting that after every rudeness,Wharton's regard for her seemed to rise, and he took her more and moreinto his confidence with every new brutality.
"Some day he will drag you to the altar by the hair," said Esther; "andtell you that his happiness requires you to be his wife."
"I wish he would try," said Catherine with a little look of humor; "buthe has one wife already."
"She mysteriously disappeared," replied Esther. "Some day you will findher skeleton, poor thing!"
"Do you think so?" said Catherine gravely. "How fascinating he is! Hemakes me shiver!"
When Catherine begged to have every thing begun again, Whartonhesitated. Esther's work was not to his taste, but he was not at allsure that she would do equally well if she tried to imitate his ownmanner.
"You know I wanted Miss Dudley to put more religious feeling and forceinto her painting," said he, "but you all united and rode me down."
"I will look like a real angel this time," said Catherine. "Now I knowwhat it is you want."
"I am more than half on her side," went on Wharton. "I am not sure thatshe is wrong. It all comes to this: is religion a struggle or a joy? Tome it is a terrible battle, to be won or lost. I like your green dresswith the violets. Whose idea was that?"
"Petrarch's. You know I am Laura. St. Cecilia has the dress which Laurawore in church when Petrarch first saw her."
"No!" said Wharton, after another pause, and long study of the twofigures. "Decidedly I will not rub you out; but I mean to touch upPetrarch."
"O! You won't spoil the likeness!"
"Not at all! But if I am going to posterity by your side I want someexpression in my face. Petrarch was a man of troubles."
"You promise not to change the idea?"
"I promise to look at you as long as you look at me," said Whartongloomily.
Meanwhile Esther had a talk with Mr. Hazard which left her more in doubtthan ever as to what she had best do. He urged her to begin somethingnew and to do it in a more strenuous spirit.
"You are learning from Wharton," said he. "Why should you stop at thevery moment when you have most to gain?"
"I am learning nothing but what I knew before," she answered sadly. "Hecan teach only grand art and I am fit only for trifles."
"Try one more figure!"
Esther shook her head.
"My Cecilia is a failure," she went on. "Mr. Wharton said it would be,and he was right. I should do no better next time, unless I took hisdesign and carried it out exactly as he orders."
"One's first attempt is always an experiment. Try once more!"
"I should only spoil your church. In the middle of your best sermon youraudience would see you look up here and laugh."
"You are challenging compliments."
"What I could do nicely would be to paint squirrels and monkeys playingon vines round the choir, or daisies and buttercups in a row, with onetall daisy in each group of five. That is the way for a woman to makeherself useful."
"Be serious!"
"I feel more solemn than Mr. Wharton's great figure of John of Patmos. Iam going home to burn my brushes and break my palette. What is the useof trying to go forward when one feels iron bars across one's face?"
"Be reasonable, Miss Dudley! If Wharton is willing to teach, why not bewilling to learn? You are not to be the judge. If I think your workgood, have I not a right to call on you for it?"
"Oh, yes! You have a right to call, and I have a right to refuse. I willpaint no more religious subjects. I have not enough soul. My St. Cecilialooks like a nursery governess playing a waltz for white-cravated saintsto dance by." There was a tone of real mortification in Esther's voiceas she looked once more at the figure on the wall, and felt how weak itseemed by the side of Wharton's masculine work. Then she suddenlychanged her mind and did just what he asked: "If Mr. Wharton willconsent, I will begin again, and paint it all over."
A woman could easily have seen that she was torn in opposite directionsby motives of a very contrary kind, but Mr. Hazard did not speculate onthis subject; he was glad to carry his point, and let the matter restthere. It was agreed that the next morning Wharton should decide uponthe proper course to be taken, and if he chose to reject her figure, sheshould begin it again. Esther and Catherine went home, but Esther wasill at ease. That her St. Cecilia did not come up to the level of herambition was a matter of course, and she was prepared for thedisappointment. Whose first attempt in a new style ever paired with itsconception? She felt that Mr. Hazard would think her wayward and weak.She could not tell him the real reason of her perplexity. She would haveliked to work on patiently under Wharton's orders without a thought ofherself, but how could she do so when Hazard was day by day comingnearer and nearer until already their hands almost touched. If she hadnot liked him, the question could easily have been settled, but she didlike him, and when she said this to herself she turned scarlet at thethought that he liked her, and--what should she do?
With a heavy heart she made up her mind that there was but one thing tobe done; she must retreat into her own house and bar the doors. If hedid not see that such an intimacy was sure to make trouble for him, she,who felt, if she did not see, the gulf that separated them, must teachhim better.
Whether she would have held to this wise and prudent course against hisentreaties and Wharton's commands will never be known, for the question,which at the moment seemed to her so hard to decide, was alreadyanswered by fates which left her no voice in the matter. The nextmorning when the two girls, rather later than usual, reached the southdoor of the church where a stern guardian always stood to watch lestwolves entered under pretense of business, they saw a woman standing onthe steps and gazing at them as they approached from the avenue. In thisthey found nothing to surprise them, but as they came face to face withher they noticed that the stranger's dress and features were peculiarand uncommon even in New York, the sink of races. Although the weatherwas not cold, she wore a fur cap, picturesque but much worn, far fromneat, and matching in dirt as in style a sort of Polish or Hungariancapote thrown over her shoulders. Her features were strong, coarse andbloated; her eyes alone were fine. When she suddenly spoke to Esther hervoice was rough, like her features; and though Esther had seen toolittle of life to know what depths of degradation such a face and voicemeant, she drew back with some alarm. The woman spoke in French only toask whether this was the church of St. John. Replying shortly that itwas, Esther passed in without waiting for another question; but as sheclimbed the narrow and rough staircase to her gallery, she said toCatherine who was close behind:
"Somewhere I have seen that woman's eyes."
"So have I!" answered Catherine, in a tone of suppressed excitement sounusual that Esther stopped short on the step and turned round.
"Don't you know where?" asked Catherine without waiting to bequestioned.
"Where was it?"
"In my picture! Mr. Wharton gave me her eyes. I am sure that woman ishis wife."
"Catherine, you shall go back to Colorado. You have been reading toomany novels. You are as romantic as a man."
Catherine did not care whether she were romantic or not; she knew thewoman was Wharton's wife.
"Perhaps she means to kill him," she ran on in a blood-curdling tone."Wouldn't it be like Mr. Wharton to be stabbed to the heart on the stepsof a church, just as his great work was done? Do you know I think hewould like it. He is dying to be tragic like the Venetians, and havesome one write a poem about him." Then after a moment's pause, sheadded, in the same indifferent tone of voice: "All the same, if he's notthere, I mean to go back and look out for him. I'm not going to let thatwoman kill him if I can help it!"
A warm dispute arose between the two girls which continued after theyreached their scaffold and found that Wharton was not there. Estherdeclared that Catherine should not go back; it was ridiculous andimproper; Mr. Wharton would laugh in her face and think her bold andimpertinent; the woman was probably a beggar who wanted to see Mr.Hazard; and when all this was of no avail Esther insisted that Catherineshould not go alone. Catherine, on her part, declared that she was notafraid of the woman, or of any woman, or man either, or of Mr. Wharton,and that she meant to walk down the avenue and meet him, and tell himthat this person was there. She was on the point of doing what shethreatened when they saw Wharton himself cross the church beneath andslowly climb the stairs.
The two girls, dismissing their alarm as easily as they had taken it up,turned to their own affairs again. In a few minutes Wharton appeared onthe scaffolding and went to his regular work-place. After a time theysaw him coming to their corner. He looked paler than usual and moreabstracted, and, what was unusual, he carried a brush in his hand, asthough he had broken off his work without thinking what he was doing. Hehardly noticed them, but sat down, holding the brush with both hands,though it was wet. For some time he looked at the Cecilia without aword; then he began abruptly:
"You're quite right! It's not good! It's not handled in a large way orin keeping with the work round it. You might do it again much better.But it is you and it is she! I would leave it. I will leave it! Ifnecessary I could in a few days paint it all over and make it harmonize,but I should spoil it. I can draw better and paint better, but I can'tmake a young girl from Colorado as pure and fresh as that. To mereligion is passion. To reach Heaven, you must go through hell, andcarry its marks on your face and figure. I can't paint innocence withoutsuggesting sin, but you can, and the church likes it. Put your ownsanctity on the wall beside my martyrdom!"
Esther thought it would be civil on her part to say something at thispoint, but Wharton's remarks seemed to be made to no one in particular,and she was not quite certain that they were meant for her in spite ofthe words. He did not look at her. She was used to his peculiar moodsand soliloquies, and had learned to be silent at such times. She satsilent now, but Catherine, who took greater liberties with him, wasbolder.
"Why can't you paint innocence?" she asked.
"I am going to tell you," he replied, with more quickness of manner. "Itis to be the subject of my last lecture. Ladies, school must closeto-day."
Esther and Catherine glanced at each other. "You are going to send usaway?" asked Catherine in a tone of surprise.
"You must go for the present," answered Wharton. "I mean to tell you thereason, and then you will see why I can't paint innocence as you can. Asa lecture on art, my life is worth hearing, but don't interrupt thestory or you will lose it. Begin by keeping in your mind that twentyyears ago I was a ragged boy in the streets of Cincinnati. The drawingmaster in a public school to which I went, said I had a natural talentfor drawing, and taught me all he knew. Then a little purse was made upfor me and I was sent to Paris. Not yet twenty years old, I found myselfdropped into that great sewer of a city, a shy, ill-clothed, ill-fed,ill-educated boy, knowing no more of the world above me than a fishknows of the birds. For two years I knocked about in a studio till mymoney was used up, and then I knew enough to be able to earn a fewfrancs to keep me alive. Then I went down to Italy and of course got afever. I came back at last to Paris, half-fed, dyspeptic and morbid. Ihad visions, and the worst vision of my life I am going to tell you.
"It was after I had been some years at work and had got already a littlereputation among Americans, that I was at my worst. Nothing seemed real.What earned me my first success was an attempt I made to paint thestrange figures and fancies which possessed me. I studied nothing butthe most extravagant subjects. For a time nothing would satisfy me butto draw from models at moments of intense suffering and at the instantof death. Models of that kind do not offer themselves and are not to bebought. I made friends with the surgeons and got myself admitted to oneof the great hospitals. I happened to be there one day when a woman wasbrought in suffering from an overdose of arsenic. This was the kind ofsubject I wanted. She was fierce, splendid, a priestess of the oracle!Tortured by agony and clinging to it as though it were a delight! Thenext day I came back to look for her: she was then exhausted and halfdead. She was a superb model, and I took an interest in her. When shegrew better I talked with her and found that she was a sort of ParisianPole with a strange history. She had been living as an actress at one ofthe small theaters, and had attempted suicide in sheer disgust withlife. I had played with the same idea for years. We had both struggledwith the world and hated it. Her imagination was more morbid than myown, and in her quieter moments, when her affections were roused, shewas wonderfully tender and devoted. When she left the hospital she putherself under my protection. I believe she loved me, and no one had everloved me before. I know she took possession of me, body and soul. Imarried her. I would just as willingly have jumped into the Seine withher if she had preferred it. For three months we lived together while Ifinished the picture which I called the Priestess of Delphi, paintedfrom my drawings of her in her agony. The picture made a great noise inParis, and brought me some new friends, among the rest one who, I think,really saved me from Charenton. Hazard called at my studio just as mytroubles were beginning to tear me to pieces. My wife had the temper ofa fury, and all the vices of Paris. Excitement was her passion; shecould not stand the quiet of an artist's life; yet her Bohemianinstincts came over her only in waves, and when they left her in peaceshe still had splendid qualities that held me to her. Hazard came inupon us one day in the middle of a terrible scene when she wasthreatening again to take her own life, and trying, or pretending to tryto take mine. When he came in, she disappeared. The next I heard of her,she was back on the stage--lost! I was worn out; my nervous system wasall gone. Then Hazard came to my help and took me off with him to thesouth of Europe. Our first stage was to Avignon and Vaucluse, and thereI found how curiously my experience had affected my art. I had learnedto adore purity and repose, but I could never get hold of my ideal.Fifty times I tried to draw Laura as I wanted to realize her and everytime I failed. I knew the secret of Petrarch and I could not tell it. Mywife came between me and my thought. All life took form in my hands as apassion. If I could learn again to paint a child, or any thing that hadnot the world in its eyes, I should be at peace at last."
As he paused here, and seemed again to be musing over St. Cecilia,Esther's curiosity made her put in a word,
"And your wife?"--she asked.
"My wife?" he repeated in his abstracted tone, "I never saw her againtill this morning when I met her on the steps of the church."
"Then it was your wife?" cried Catherine.
"You saw her?" he asked with a touch of bitterness. "I won't ask whatyou thought of her."
"I knew her by her eyes," cried Catherine. "I thought she meant to shootyou, and when you came in I was just going to warn you. Now you see,Esther, I was right."
Wharton leaned over and took Catherine's hand. "Thank you," said he. "Ibelieve you are my good angel. But you remind me of what I came to say.The woman is quite capable of that or of any other scandal, and ofcourse Hazard's church must not be exposed to such a risk. I shall comehere no longer for the present, neither must you. I am bound to takecare of my friends."
"But you!" said Esther. "What are you going to do?"
"I? Nothing! What can I do?"
"Do you mean," said Catherine, with a comical fierceness in her voice asthough she wanted herself to take the French actress in hand, "do youmean to let that woman worry you how she likes?"
"The fault was mine," replied Wharton. "I gave her my life. After allshe is my wife and I can't help it. I have promised to meet her thisafternoon at my studio."
Even to these two girls there was something so helpless in Wharton'sideas of life that they protested against his conduct. Catherine wasspeechless with inability to understand what he meant. Esther boldlyinterfered.
"You must do nothing without advice," said she. "Wait till Mr. Hazardcomes and consult him. If you can't see him, promise me to go to myuncle, Mr. Murray, and let him take charge of this woman. You will ruinyour whole life if you let her into it again."
"It is ruined already," answered Wharton gloomily. "I had that onechance of happiness and I can never have another."
Nevertheless he promised to wait for Hazard, and the two girlsobediently bade him good-by. Catherine's eyes were full of tears as heheld her hand and begged her pardon for his rudeness. A little romancewas passing out of her life. She went down the stairs after Estherwithout a word. As they left the church they saw the woman on thepavement outside, still walking up and down; Catherine passed her with aglance of repulsion and defiance that made the woman turn and watch hertill they disappeared down the avenue.
An hour afterwards a quick step hurried up the stair, and Hazard,evidently much disturbed, appeared on the scaffolding. He found Whartonwhere the two girls had left him, sitting alone before St. Cecilia, thebroken brush still in his hands, and his left hand red with the wetpaint. His face was paler than ever, and over the left temple was alarge red spot, as though he had been pressing his hands to hisforehead. Hazard looked for a moment at the white face, contrastingpainfully with its ghastly spot of intense red, and then spoke withassumed indifference:
"So she has turned up again!"
Wharton returned his look with a weak smile which made his face stillmore horrible, and slowly answered:
"I have worse news than that!"
"More bad news!" said Hazard.
"Tell me what you think," continued Wharton in the same dreamy tone."You see that Cecilia there?"
Hazard glanced at the figure and back to Wharton without speaking.Presently Wharton added with a smile of inexpressible content:
"Well! I love her."