Fairfax and His Pride Part 39

That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take Antony Fairfax in.

Behind the bay-trees a dirty, discouraged looking waiter, to whom the universe had apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless dress-suit; his linen was suspicious, but his head at this early hour was sleekly brushed and oiled.

"No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, as though he said, "The entire universe, thank G.o.d, has not yet descended upon us."

For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth floor. Antony yielded up his bag and bade the man show the way.

CHAPTER III

He could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set forth into the city. He saw something of it from the eave-window in his microscopic room. Chimney-pots, stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the round of a dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, to him, a friendly sky--he felt that he must quaff it all at a draught.

But the fatigue of his lame limb began to oppress him. There was the weight of sleep on his eyelids, and he turned gratefully to the small bed under the red rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six feet of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and slept.

Dreams chased each other through his brain and he stretched out his hands toward elusive forms in his sleep. He seized upon one, thinking it was Bella, and when he pressed his cheek to hers, the cheek was cold and the form was cold. He slept till afternoon and rose still with the daze upon him of his arrival and his dreams, and the first excitement somewhat calmed. He had enough change for his lodging and dinner, but nothing more.

He walked across the bridge and the light and brilliance of the city dazzled him. He went into the Louvre, and the coolness and breadth of the place fell on him like a spell. He wondered if any in that vast place was as athirst as he was and as mad for beauty. He wandered through the rooms enthralled, and made libations to the relics of old Egypt; he sent up hymns to the remains of ancient Greece, and before the Venus of Milo gave up his heart, standing long absorbed before the statue, swearing to slave for the production of beauty. He found himself stirred to his most pa.s.sionate depths, musing on form and artistic creation, and when the pulse in his heart became too strong and the Venus oppressed his sense, he wandered out, limped up the staircase and delivered up his soul at the foot of the pedestal of the Winged Victory.

He did not go to the paintings; the feast had been tremendous--he could bear no more.

On his way out of the Louvre he pa.s.sed through the Egyptian room. Ever since the Abydos Sphinx had been brought to America, from the Nile, Egypt had charmed him. He had read of Egypt, its treasures, in the Albany library now and then on Sunday afternoons. It had a tremendous attraction for him, and he entered the room where its relics were with worship of the antique in his soul.

He turned to go, when his foot touched something on the floor and he stooped to pick it up--a fine chain purse heavy with pieces of gold. He balanced it in his hand and looked around for the possible owner, but he was the only sightseer. He went, however, quickly from the museum, not knowing in just what manner to restore this property, and in front of him, pa.s.sing out on to the gallery above the grand staircase, he saw a lady leisurely making her exit. She was beautifully dressed and had such an air of riches about her that he thought to himself, with every reason, why should she not be the possessor of a gold purse? He went up to her.

"I beg pardon," he began, and as she turned he recognized her in a moment as the woman by whose carriage he had stood in the crowd on the day of the unveiling of his statue--he recognized her as the woman who had drawn the veil of the Sphinx. She was Cedersholm's fiancee. "Have you lost anything, Madame?"

She exclaimed: "My purse! Oh, thank you very much." Then looked at him, smiling, and said, "But I think I have seen you before. Whom must I thank?"

He had his hat in his hand. His fine, clear brow over which the hair grew heavily, his beautiful face, his strength and figure, once seen and remembered as she had remembered them in that brief instant in New York, were not to be forgotten. Still the resemblance puzzled her.

"My name is Rainsford," he said quietly, "Thomas Rainsford. I am one of Mr Cedersholm's pupils."

"If that is so," she said, "you are welcome at my house at any time. I am home Sundays. Won't you give me the pleasure of calling, Mr.

Rainsford?"

He bowed, thanked her, and they walked down the stairs together, and she was unable to recall where she had seen this handsome young man.

CHAPTER IV

In his little hotel that night he lighted a candle in a tall nickel candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, he peered into his mirror at his own face, which he took pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a friend's it looked back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it.

At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was roused by the turning of the handle of his door. Some one had come into the room and Antony, bolt upright, heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then something slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, shielded it, and to his amazement saw sitting on the floor, his big form taking up half the little room, a young fellow in full evening dress, an opera hat on the back of his head.

"Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; "I see I'm too late or too early, or shomething or other."

He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and evidently drunk. Antony laughed and got half-way out of bed.

"You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how are you going to get out of it? Can you get up with a lift?"

"Look here"--the young man who was an American and who would have been agreeable-looking if he had not been drunk and hebetated, sat back and leaned comfortably against the door--"roomsh all right, good roomsh, just like mine; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed."

Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the stranger was immense, as big as himself, and determined and happy. He had made up his mind to pa.s.s his night on the floor.

Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself overcome with sleep.

To the young man who barricaded the door, and who was already beginning to drowse, he said pleasantly----

"Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat."

"Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with solemn dignity, "go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm nothing but a little mountain flower," he quoted pathetically. His head fell over, his big body followed it.

Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's head, and turned in himself, amused by his singularly companioned night.

"What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from a voice not unpleasant, although markedly Western. And he opened his eyes to see bending over him a ruffled, untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to have last seen sprawling on the floor.

"Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own?" asked the young man.

Antony told him.

"George!" exclaimed the other, sitting down on the bed and taking his head in his hands, "I was screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in the Falls of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not kicking up a row here. My room is next or opposite or somewhere, I guess--that is, if I'm in the Universe."

Antony said that he was.

"I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolutions had accelerated."

"There's water over there," said Antony; "you're welcome to have it."

"See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half the brick you seem--and you are or you wouldn't have let me snore all night on the carpet--ring for Alphonse and send him out to get some bromo seltzer.

There's a chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line of drugs."

Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The young man waited dejectedly; having taken off his coat and collar, he looked somewhat mournfully at his silk hat which, the worse for his usage of it, had rolled in a corner of Fairfax's room.

Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps of the room, answered the bell, his advent announced by the shuffling of his old slippers; but before he had knocked the young man slid across the room and stood flat behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence would not be observed by the valet.

The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion to ring, opened the door and stood waiting for the order. He was a small, round-faced fellow in a green barege ap.r.o.n, that came up and down and all over him. In his hand he carried a melancholy feather duster.

"Le dejeuner, Monsieur?" smiled Alphonse cordially, "un cafe complet?"

"Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, "and as well, would you go to the pharmacy and get me a bottle of bromo seltzer?"

"Bien, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised and considered Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. "Bien, Monsieur," and he waited.

Fairfax was about to say: "Give me my waistcoat," but remembering his secluded friend, sprang out of bed and gave to Alphonse a five-franc piece.