Fairfax and His Pride Part 55

His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. "I shall have to p.a.w.n my watch and necklace," she said tranquilly. "Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled, nodding at him, "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on her when she marries."

A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another heiress!

"They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought after."

Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took a few paces up and down the room.

"Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked over to the door and stood with her hand on the k.n.o.b, "I used to think you were a little in love with Bella. She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown up."

Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, "Aunt Caroline, I don't like to re-live the past!"

"I don't wonder," she murmured quietly; "and you are going to make such a brilliant marriage."

He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him--like a vampire in her silks and jewels. Would she ruin her innocent, kindly husband? What would she do if she could not raise the money? He believed her capable of anything.

For three days he worked feverishly, and then he wrote to Mrs. Faversham that he was a little seedy and working, and that as Dearborn was away he would rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham accepted his decision and wrote that she was organizing a charity concert for some fearfully poor people whom the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing; the comte and comtesse would both sing at the _musicale_, and he must surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," she wrote, "and perhaps you may have some little figurine that we could raffle off in chances."

Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a statuette to be raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. She was ignorant of any sense of honour.

When Dearborn came back from London he found Antony working like mad.

Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his hat on top of it, and extended his hands.

"Empty-handed, Tony!"

But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no expression of defeat there.

"Which means you left your play in London, Bob."

"Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's and marching him up and down the studio, "we are going to be very rich."

"Only that," said Tony shortly.

"This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old man!"

Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet out of his pocket, took from it a sheaf of English notes, which he held up to Fairfax.

"Count it, old chap."

Fairfax shook his head. "No; tell me how much for two years' flesh and blood and soul--how you worked here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and suffered!"

"I forget it all," said the playwright quietly; "but it can never be paid for with such chaff as this,"--he touched the notes. "But the applause, the people's voices, the tears and laughter, that will pay."

"By heaven!" exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's hand, "I bless you for saying that!"

Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I care for money?" he said simply. "I thought you knew me better than that."

Fairfax exclaimed, "Oh, I don't know what I know or think; I am in a bad dream."

Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is for you and me and Nora, the bunch, just as long as it lasts."

Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engagement, there had been a distinct reserve.

Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from Antony's. The two friends settled themselves comfortably. It was the close of the day.

Without, as usual, rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going with the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal noise always made for them an accompaniment not disagreeable. The last light of the spring day fell on Fairfax's uncovered work, on the damp clay with the fresh marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a red scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half curled up on the divan. The last of the day's light fell too on Dearborn's reddish hair, on his fine intelligent face. Fairfax said--

"Now tell me everything, Bob, from the beginning, from the window as you looked over the chimney-pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in the air--tell me everything, to the last word the manager said."

"Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand. "Nora is coming. I want to tell it to her as well. No one can tell twice alike the story of his first success--the first agony of first success." He caught his breath and struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. "It will be a success, thank G.o.d! There is Nora," and he crossed the studio to let Nora Scarlet in.

CHAPTER XX

The third day he went up to see her and found her in the garden, a basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore a garden hat covered with roses and carried a pair of gilded shears with which to snip her flowers. As Antony came down the steps of the house she dropped the scissors into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her cheek to him.

"You may kiss me, dear," she said; "no one will see us but the flowers and the birds."

Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though his arms were full of flowers.

"If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to you. You look well, Tony," she said. "I don't believe you have been ill at all."

"My work, Mary."

She took his arm and started towards the house. "You must let me come and see what wonderful things you are doing."

"I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. "It has taken me all this time to realize I was never a sculptor; I have been so atrociously idle, Mary."

"But you need rest, my dear Tony."

"I shall not need any rest until I am an old man."

He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They walked past the flower-beds, and she picked the dead roses, cutting the withered leaves, and talking to him gaily, telling him all she had done during the days of their separation, and suddenly he said--

"You do not seem to have missed me."

"Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm.

They walked together slowly to the house, where she left her roses in the hall and took him into the music-room, where they had been last when he left her, the afternoon following the luncheon.

"I must impress her indelibly on my mind," Antony thought. "I may never see her again."

When she had seated herself by the window through which he could see the roses on the high rose trees and the iron balcony on whose other side was the rumble of Paris, he stood before her gravely.