The Pagans Part 3

"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so."

"Oh,--my friends!"

Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom or exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant and perplexing.

She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand reflections danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in the sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling spines.

"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed, twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother Eve, do you think?"

"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of it."

A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her with a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The movement touched her companion as no words could have done.

"I beg your pardon," he muttered.

And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly and quitted the room.

IV.

AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT.

Henry VIII.; i.--3.

"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur, that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to at home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw it when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago."

"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; and as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far off that I think n.o.body here even realizes that the stupendous event is imminent at all."

"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom."

"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it altogether until it comes."

"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll find when the day of doom swoops down on you."

They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery of the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from being accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as this might be the last tranquil day she should pa.s.s with Arthur before their marriage.

She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet representing a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton sat a moment looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, then with a deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her.

"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he remarked, regarding the beautiful canvas. "Art in America is simply an irreclaimable mendicant that stands on the street corners and holds out the catch-penny hand of a beggar."

"Oh, no," Miss Caldwell replied, turning her clear glance to his, "that is only an impostor that pretends to be art. The real G.o.ddess has her temples here."

"Yes," returned he, with a laugh that covered a sneer, "but not in the way you mean."

A shadow pa.s.sed over her face; she turned a wistful glance towards him.

"I cannot understand, Arthur," she said, "why you speak so bitterly about art here. Of course, all great men are apt to be misunderstood at first, but you--"

"I am over estimated," he interrupted, inly vexed at having given the conversation this turn. "It is only for the sake of talking, _ma pet.i.te_. Don't mind it."

"But, Arthur," she persisted, "I want to say something. Uncle Peter talks as if you sided with the artists here who--who--"

She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new channel.

"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here twice that time already."

He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real importance to her.

"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they descended the wide staircase.

She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a somewhat mutilated granite statue of the G.o.ddess Pasht, the cat-headed deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm, impa.s.sive and saturnine the G.o.ddess sits, holding the sign of life with lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless eyes, have left no record on that emotionless face, whose lips still keep unchanged their faint smile beneath which lurks a sneer.

Arthur and Edith stood before it, as a pair of Egyptian lovers may have stood long ago, and for a time regarded it in silence, each moved in a way, though very differently, as their temperaments differed.

"It is the patron saint of our Pagans," the artist said at length. "How much the old creature knows, if she only chose to tell. She could give us more genuine wisdom than we shall hear in our whole lives, if she would but condescend to speak."

"Wisdom always knows the value of silence," Edith returned smiling.

"But Pasht belies her s.e.x by not being a communicative party," was her companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a characteristic of the G.o.ds."

"No irreverence, sir," Edith said with an air of mock authority, "even for these dethroned deities. What were the attributes of your cat-headed G.o.ddess?"

"Oh, various things. Pasht means, I believe, the devouring one, and she has another name signifying 'she who kindles a fire.' She was the G.o.ddess of war and of libraries, and the 'mistress of thought.' A sort of Egyptian Minerva, I suppose."

"Violence and wisdom always seemed to me a strange combination," Edith said thoughtfully, regarding the stone image intently, as if to drag from its cold lips a solution of the difficulty.

"You overlook the destructive power of words; besides, the sword or the tongue, what does it matter? Life is always a conflict, and it is of minor importance what the weapons are. It is appropriate enough for this dilapidated, but eminently respectable female to be the figure-head of a society like the Pagans where we fight with words but may come to blows any time."

He spoke gayly, pleased with having put entirely out of the conversation the unpleasant subject of his relations to her uncle, Mr.

Peter Calvin, upon which Edith had touched. But he who talks with a woman must expect the unexpected, and as they turned away from the statue of Pasht, and walked towards the street where the carriage was waiting, Miss Caldwell abruptly brought the matter up again by asking:

"But why are you artists opposed to Uncle Peter, Arthur? What is the--"

"The Pagans, _ma belle_" he interrupted coolly, quite as if he were answering her question, although in reality nothing was further from his intention, "isn't really a society at all. It is only the name by which we've taken to calling a knot of fellows who meet once a month in each other's studios. We are all St. Filipe men, but we've no organization as a club." "Well?" Edith asked, as he paused; evidently puzzled to discover any connection between her question and his reply.

"And you," her betrothed responded, tucking her into the carriage and surrept.i.tiously kissing her hand, "are the loveliest of your s.e.x. I'll come to take you to the depot at six, you know. Good-by."

He closed the carriage door, watched her drive off, and then went his own way.

V.

THE BITTER PAST.

All's Well that Ends Well; v.--3.