Murder in Any Degree Part 2

With the coveted admittance into the Salon, recognition came speedily to the two chums. They made a triumphal entry into a real studio in the Montparna.s.se Quarter, clients came, and the room became a station of honor among the young and enthusiastic of the Quarter.

Rantoul began to appear in society, besieged with the invitations that his Southern aristocracy and the romance of his success procured him.

"You go out too much," said Herkimer to him, with a fearful growl. "What the deuce do you want with society, anyhow? Keep away from it. You've nothing to do with it."

"What do I do? I go out once a week," said Rantoul, whistling pleasantly.

"Once is too often. What do you want to become, a parlor celebrity?

Society _c'est l'ennemie_. You ought to hate it."

"I do."

"Humph!" said Herkimer, eying him across his sputtering clay pipe. "Get this idea of people out of your head. Shut yourself up in a hole, work.

What's society, anyhow? A lot of bored people who want you to amuse them. I don't approve. Better marry that pretty girl in the creamery.

She'll worship you as a G.o.d, make you comfortable. That's all you need from the world."

"Marry her yourself; she'll sew and cook for you," said Rantoul, with perfect good humor.

"I'm in no danger," said Herkimer, curtly; "you are."

"What!"

"You'll see."

"Listen, you old grumbler," said Rantoul, seriously. "If I go into society, it is to see the hollowness of it all--"

"Yes, yes."

"To know what I rebel against--"

"Of course."

"To appreciate the freedom of the life I have--"

"Faker!"

"To have the benefit of contrasts, light and shade. You think I am not a rebel. My dear boy, I am ten times as big a rebel as I was. Do you know what I'd do with society?"

He began a tirade in the famous muscular Rantoul style, overturning creeds and castes, reorganizing republics and empires, while Herkimer, grumbling to himself, began to scold the model, who sleepily received the brunt of his ill humor.

In the second year of his success Rantoul, quite by accident, met a girl in her teens named Tina Glover, only daughter of Cyrus Glover, a man of millions, self-made. The first time their eyes met and lingered, by the mysterious chemistry of the pa.s.sions Rantoul fell desperately in love with this little slip of a girl, who scarcely reached to his shoulder; who, on her part, instantly made up her mind that she had found the husband she intended to have. Two weeks later they were engaged.

She was seventeen, scarcely more than a child, with clear, blue eyes that seemed too large for her body, very timid and appealing. It is true she seldom expressed an opinion, but she listened to every one with a flattering smile, and the reputations of brilliant talkers have been built on less. She had a way of pa.s.sing her two arms about Rantoul's great one and clinging to him in a weak, dependent way that was quite charming.

When Cyrus Glover was informed that his daughter intended to marry a dauber in paints, he started for Paris on ten hours' notice. But Mrs.

Glover who was just as resolved on social conquests as Glover was in controlling the plate-gla.s.s field, went down to meet him at the boat, and by the time the train entered the St. Lazare Station, he had been completely disciplined and brought to understand that a painter was one thing and that a Rantoul, who happened to paint, was quite another. When he had known Rantoul a week; and listened open-mouthed to his eloquent schemes for reordering the universe, and the arts in particular, he was willing to swear that he was one of the geniuses of the world.

The wedding took place shortly, and Cyrus Glover gave the bridegroom a check for $100,000, "so that he wouldn't have to be bothering his wife for pocketmoney." Herkimer was the best man, and the Quarter attended in force, with much outward enthusiasm. The bride and groom departed for a two-year's trip around the world, that Rantoul might inspire himself with the treasures of Italy, Greece, India, and j.a.pan.

Every one, even Herkimer, agreed that Rantoul was the luckiest man in Paris; that he had found just the wife who was suited to him, whose fortune would open every opportunity for his genius to develop.

"In the first place," said Bennett, when the group had returned to Herkimer's studio to continue the celebration, "let me remark that in general I don't approve of marriage for an artist."

"Nor I," cried Chatterton, and the chorus answered, "Nor I."

"I shall never marry," continued Bennett.

"Never," cried Chatterton, who beat a tattoo on the piano with his heel to accompany the chorus of a.s.sent.

"But--I add but--in this case my opinion is that Rantoul has found a pure diamond."

"True!"

"In the first place, she knows nothing at all about art, which is an enormous advantage."

"Bravo!"

"In the second place, she knows nothing about anything else, which is better still."

"Cynic! You hate clever women," cried Jacobus.

"There's a reason."

"All the same, Bennett's right. The wife of an artist should be a creature of impulses and not ideas."

"True."

"In the third place," continued Bennett, "she believes Rantoul is a demiG.o.d. Everything he will do will be the most wonderful thing in the world, and to have a little person you are madly in love with think that is enormous."

"All of which is not very complimentary to the bride," said Herkimer.

"Find me one like her," cried Bennett.

"Ditto," said Chatterton and Jacobus with enthusiasm.

"There is only one thing that worries me," said Bennett, seriously.

"Isn't there too much money?"

"Not for Rantoul."

"He's a rebel."

"You'll see; he'll stir up the world with it."

Herkimer himself had approved of the marriage in a whole-hearted way.

The childlike ways of Tina Glover had convinced him, and as he was concerned only with the future of his friend, he agreed with the rest that nothing luckier could have happened.

Three years pa.s.sed, during which he received occasional letters from his old chum, not quite so spontaneous as he had expected, but filled with the wonder of the ancient worlds. Then the intervals became longer, and longer, and finally no letters came.