Fairfax and His Pride Part 58

He had exhibited each year with increasing success at private exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had been called "poseur"

because of his reluctance to expose his work in national academies. His bas-reliefs had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled the solemn marble that came now from his studio. Antony's work occupied some twenty feet in the Champ de Mars.

His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the floor, in which the critics spoke of him in terms he thought fulsome and ridiculous, and they pained him while they dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had thought of Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to his questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, married, no doubt, always enchanting. How she had stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing, and her eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, beautiful!" He would have liked to have led Bella to his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with her, until the crowd around them should have melted away, have stood there with her alone. From the night her inspiring little hand had stolen into his, Bella's hand had seemed a mate for his.

"Who is it, Cousin Antony?"

Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open Door? What woman's face and form constantly inspired him, haunting him, promising to haunt him until the end? He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the companion.

Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, his past, had done their work. What fresh inspiration would urge him now to create?

The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb made him celebrated in twenty-four hours. At a time when all Paris was laughing at Rodin's Balzac, there was a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist and dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique.

He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise which the "Open Door" called forth from the reviews. "It is not as good as all that," he thought, "and it is too soon to hear thunder about my ears."

He seemed to see the door of his future open and himself standing there, the burden of proof upon him. What work he must continue to produce in order to sustain such sudden fame! The _Figaro_ called him a "giant,"

and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. His mail was full of letters from friends and strangers. By ten o'clock the night of the "Vernissage" all his acquaintances and intimates in Paris had brought him their felicitations. He turned back to his table where his letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, enthusiastic expression of praise and belief from Potowski. There was another note which he had read first with anger, then with keen satisfaction, and then with as much malice as his heart could hold.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I have the honour to represent in France the committee for the construction in Boston of a triumphal arch to be raised in commemoration of the men who first fell in the battle of the Revolution. The idea is to crown this arch with a group of figures, either realistic or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit.

After carefully considering the modern work of men in France, I am inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept it. Your 'Open Door' is the most beautiful piece of sculpture, according to my opinion, in modern times. An appointment would gratify me very much.

"I have the honour to be, sir, etc., "GUNNER CEDERSHOLM."

Antony had given the appointment with excitement, and he was waiting now to see for the first time in ten years the man who had stolen from him fame, honour, and love.

He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six years. As far as he knew, during this time they had never returned to France. Once he vaguely understood that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's health.

His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded as his bitterest enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought now only as he thought of woman, of vain visions which he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly torn his love out of his heart.

After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for some time in London where Dearborn had followed him, and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet were married. Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful play. Fairfax took a position as professor of drawing in a girls' school in the West End and taught a group of schoolgirls for several months. Between times he modelled on his statues for his new conception of the "Open Door."

Then in the following spring, with a yearning in his heart and homesickness for France, he returned into the city with the May. He could scarcely look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. He rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and began his work in terrible earnestness.

Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if Mary Cedersholm had visited the Salon, if with others she had stood before his sculpture.

His servant announced "Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and shut the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast studio in the soft light of late afternoon with which the spring twilight, rapidly withdrawing, filled the room. Antony did not stir from his chair, where he sat enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

The small man--Fairfax had forgotten how small he was--entered cautiously as though he were entering the room of a foe, which, indeed, he was doing, without being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had seen Cedersholm wearing a single eyegla.s.s, and now spectacles of extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently saw with difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, Cedersholm approached, saying tentatively--

"Mr. Rainsford? I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Rainsford."

"Yes," said Fairfax curtly, "I am here. Sit down, will you?"

His lame foot, which would have disclosed his ident.i.ty, was withdrawn under his chair.

"I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, "where I had a sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly."

"Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, "is a common failing, but many of us don't know we have anything the matter with our eyes."

"It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said Cedersholm, taking the chair to which Fairfax had pointed.

From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a cigar, which was refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it was evident he had not been recognized.

"I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm said. "A man like you who must adore his work can easily imagine what this means."

"For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I know what it means."

"Ah!" exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. "What was your infirmity?"

"Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You have not come to talk with me about the short and simple annals of the poor."

"All that which goes to make the education and career of a great man,"

said Cedersholm, "is deeply interesting, especially to a confrere. You have executed a very great piece of work, Mr. Rainsford."

Fairfax made no response.

"You seem," said Cedersholm, "to doubt my sincerity. You received my letter?"

"Yes."

"Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work?"

The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered from his former self that Tony was obliged to whip up his memories, to call up all his past in order to connect this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale, meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, disfigured by his thick gla.s.ses, he seemed to have shrunk into a little insignificant creature.

No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax answered it would depend upon circ.u.mstances.

"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his gla.s.ses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. "I have suffered dreadfully with these infirm eyes," he said.

Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip up his memories, and, once goaded, like all revengeful and evil things, they came now quickly to bring back to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice had disappeared--his nature was too sweet, too generous and forgiving to brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. He had been living fast; he had been working intensely; he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes and sighed and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of his studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, instead, Cedersholm's rich, extravagant New York workshop rose up before his eyes. He saw himself again the young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was to be immortal labour; it had been given for this man then, the greatest living sculptor, to adopt it for his own. Now his heart began to beat fast. He clasped his hands strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat.

"I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, "a tremendous price."

"Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. "Talent such as yours should be paid for generously. I used to think so. I have commanded my price, Mr. Rainsford."

"I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax.

The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, and continued--

"The committee is very rich; there are men of enormous fortunes interested in the monument. They can pay--in reason," he added; "of course, in reason--and as you are an American there would be in your mind the ideal of patriotism."

"My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax.

Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him lacking in courtesy and manners, began to peer at him keenly in the rapidly deepening twilight.

"In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be understood and approved of by the man who, in his judgment, was important in the sculpture of the time, he continued courteously, "there is no price too much to pay for art. I have followed your work for years."

"Have you?" said Antony.

"Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition of the works of the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm again took out his fine silk handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. "Since then I have looked for comments on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you mentioned, I reminded the fact to my wife, who was an admirer of your talent."

Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his blood chilled. Mary!