The Pagans Part 21

Mrs. Fenton had some difficulty in finding a carriage, and by the time she returned Ninitta had yielded herself submissively to Helen's guidance.

Mrs. Greyson saw that her charge was carefully protected against the cold, a matter which the mildness of the day rendered easy, and, supported by the two ladies, the model was able to walk down stairs to the carriage.

During the drive homeward Helen lay back thinking hotly, and flushed with excitement. Ninitta sank into a doze, and Mrs. Fenton sat looking at her friend with the air of one who has discovered in an acquaintance characteristics before wholly unsuspected. She hesitated a little, and then, mastering her shyness, she bent forward and kissed Helen's hand.

The other submitted in silence. Indeed, the exaltation of her mood seemed to lift her above her surroundings so that she felt a strange remoteness from her companion. Yet she was conscious of a vague twinge of annoyance at Edith's act, although she could neither have excused nor defined the feeling. Mrs. Fenton not infrequently aroused in her a curious mingling of attraction and repulsion; and it was under the influence of the latter that she answered brusquely her friend's next remark.

"How did you quiet Ninitta?" Edith asked.

"By telling her lies," returned Helen wearily and laconically.

"What!"

"She is in no condition to be dealt with rationally," continued Mrs.

Greyson, in a tone explanatory, but in no way defensive, "so I said whatever would soothe her."

Edith sat in silent dismay. Apparently the woman before her, by whose generous self-forgetfulness she had been touched, was perfectly untroubled by the idea of speaking a falsehood, a state of mind so utterly beyond Edith's experience as to be incomprehensible to her. She could not bring herself to remonstrate, but it pained her that such philanthropy should be stained by what she considered so wrong.

Mrs. Fenton was perhaps equally mistaken in her opinion of Helen's regard for truth and of her philanthropy. Mrs. Greyson had a deep repugnance to falsehood, and Arthur Fenton had often good-humoredly jeered at what he called her Puritanic scrupulousness in this respect.

On an occasion such as at present, however, the use of an untruth would cause her not even a second thought, her reason so strongly supporting her course as even to overcome her instincts; a fact which a moralist might deplore but which still remains a fact.

Her philanthropy, upon the other hand, although seeming to Edith so disinterested, was largely instigated by a desire to aid Grant Herman.

Just what she wished or expected him to do, she could not have told, her actions being no more regulated by strict logic than those of most women; but she felt that it was the office of friendship to see, if possible, that no harm came to the Italian through the jealousy which both herself and Herman knew to be but too well founded. She determined to take Ninitta home and do for her all that was necessary, in order that the sculptor be spared the remorse which would pursue him if harm came to his old betrothed. She was not without a secret feeling, moreover, scarcely acknowledged to herself, that she owed some reparation to the girl whose lover's heart she had won, no matter how undesignedly.

Reaching home, she got Ninitta to bed and sent for Dr. Ashton. Then she dispatched a note to Grant Herman, saying:

"Ninitta is with me; give yourself no uneasiness."

XXV.

THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME.

Measure for Measure; iv.--4.

Ninitta's illness proved after all very slight. So slight, indeed, that Dr. Ashton, calling in on his way to dine with the Fentons Thursday evening, found her gone. She had insisted upon returning to her attic, although Helen had not allowed her to depart without promising not to abscond a second time.

Ninitta was grateful to Mrs. Greyson with all the ardor of her pa.s.sionate southern heart. She did not, it is true, understand the relations between Herman and Helen, but even her jealousy was lost in the grat.i.tude she felt for the beautiful woman who had cared for her, and it is not unlikely saved her from a dangerous illness. It did not seem possible to the undisciplined Italian, versed only in crude, simple emotions, that a woman who was her rival could treat her with tenderness. She accepted Helen's kindness as indisputable proof that the latter did not love the sculptor, a conclusion which the premises scarcely warranted. She volunteered to pose again, and Mrs. Greyson, thinking it well to keep the girl under her influence, and desiring a return to at least the semblance of the peaceful existence preceding the stormy episode just ended, eagerly accepted this offer, only stipulating that the model should undertake nothing until she was really well able.

"I shall come back to supper," Dr. Ashton said, as he left his wife. "I have half a mind not to go to Fenton's; only it amuses me to watch the fellow's degeneration."

"It never amuses me to watch any degradation," she returned gravely.

"How do you know he is degenerating? If you mean by following his wife, why, they may be right after all, and what we call superst.i.tion the veriest truth."

"Of course," answered he. "I never pretended to administer the exclusive mysteries of truth; but it is always a degradation to yield to personal influence at the expense of conviction. Arthur is as much of a heathen to-day as he ever was, only he is too fond of comfort to have the courage of his opinions."

Helen sighed.

"Truth to me," she said thoughtfully, "is whatever one sincerely believes; I cannot conceive of any other standard. One man's truth is often another's falsehood."

"You are as dull as a preface to-night, Helen; what carking care is gnawing at your vitals?"

"Nothing in particular. A certain melancholy is befitting a widow, you know, and that's what I am supposed to be."

"On the contrary there is a certain vivacity about the word widow to my mind."

"Your experience has been wider than mine. I am aware that I am too much given to vast moral reflections, but you provoke them."

"I am sorry to provoke you," he said gayly. "Forgive me before supper time; who knows what rich experiences I may have between now and then.

Good-by."

As he walked toward his appointment, could Dr. Ashton's vision have reached to the house whither he was going, he would have seen Arthur Fenton and his wife sitting together before an open fire awaiting their guest. The artist was showing Edith a portfolio of sketches by foreign painters, which he had brought from his studio.

"What a strange uncanny thing this is," he remarked, holding one up.

"It is just like Frontier; I never saw any thing more characteristic. I wonder you got so few of his tricks, Edith, while you studied with him."

"He always repelled me. I was afraid of him. Where did you get this sketch?"

"Dr. Ashton gave it to me."

"Dr. Ashton!"

"Yes; when he was in Paris, both he and his wife were intimate with Frontier. Or at least Will was."

"Oh, Arthur!"

She leaned forward in her chair, her always pale face a.s.suming a new pallor. Laying her hand upon her husband's, she asked in a quick, excited manner:

"Do you know how Frontier died?"

"I know he died suddenly; now you speak of it, I have an idea it was a case of _felo de se_. You know I was in Munich at the time."

"Arthur," Edith said earnestly, "I have never told even you; but I saw Frontier die. I had a pa.s.s-key to his studio, and his private rooms were just behind it. That night I went in on my way from dinner--Uncle Peter and I had been dining together, and I left him at the door with the carriage--after a study I'd forgotten. We were going to Rome the next morning, and I didn't want to leave it. The picture was at the further end of the studio, and as I went down the room I heard voices and saw that Frontier's door was open. He sat at a table with a tiny wine-gla.s.s in his hand. A man who stood back to me said, just as I came within hearing: 'It is none of my affair, and I shall not interfere; but you'll allow me to advise you not to be rash.' I could not hear Frontier's answer, partly because I paid no attention, of course never suspecting the truth. But as I went towards my easel, Frontier, hearing the noise, I suppose, and afraid of being interrupted, caught up the gla.s.s and drank what was in it. The other man sprang forward just in time to catch him as he fell back, and it suddenly came over me that he was taking poison. I cried out and ran into the room, but it seemed only an instant before it vas all over. Oh, it was terrible, Arthur, terrible!"

She covered her agitated face with her hands, as if to shut out the vision which rose before her. Her husband sat in silent astonishment, a conviction growing in his mind of whom the other witness of Frontier's death must have been.

"Arthur," Edith broke out suddenly, "that man was no better than a murderer. He let Frontier kill himself. When I cried out, 'Oh, why didn't you stop him!' he said as coolly as if I had asked the most trivial question, 'Why should I? What right had I to interfere?' It was terrible! He seemed to me a perfect fiend!"

"It was--who was it?" demanded her husband, a name almost escaping him in his excitement.

"It was Dr. Ashton; the man who is coming to sit down at your table to-night. Arthur, I cannot meet him! I knew when he came to our reception that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where. There is his ring now. Let me get by you!"

"But where are you going?" Fenton asked in amazement.

"To my room. Any where to get out of his way."