Fairfax and His Pride Part 42

Pinched and haggard, his hands in his pockets, the young fellow watched the sculptor. Fairfax skilfully released his statue from the mould. He had been working on this, with other things, for a month. He unprisoned the little figurine, a little nude dancer, her arms above her head, the face and smile faun-like.

"Pleine de malice," said Dearborn, "extremement fine, my dear Tony. As an object of 'luxe' I find it as exquisite as an article of food, if not as satisfying. It's not good enough to _eat_, Tony, and those are the only standards I judge by now."

Fairfax turned the figure between his fingers lovingly--lily-white, freshly cold, bits of the mould clinging to it, small and fine, it lay in the palm of his shapely hand.

"If you don't want the boots, Bob," he said, "I think I'll go out in them."

The legal owner of the boots went out in them into the damp, bitter cold. His big figure cut along through the mist and he limped over the Pont des Arts towards the Louvre. All Paris seemed to him blue with cold. The river flowed between its banks with suppressed intent and powerful westward rush, and its mighty flow expressed indifference to the life and pa.s.sion of existence along its sh.o.r.es.

He leaned a moment on the bridge. Paris was personal to him and the river was like its soul. He was faint from lack of food and overstrain.

In the Louvre, other men of conglomerate costumes as well as he sought the warm rooms. Tramps, vagrants in pitiful rags, affected interest in the works of art, resting their worn figures on the benches, exulting in the public welcome of the museum. Fairfax was more presentable, if as poor. He wore a soft black hat of good make and quality, bought in a sporting moment by Dearborn early in his career. Tony wore his own clothes, retained because they were the newest and a soft black scarf, the vogue in the quarter, was tied under his collar in rather an extravagant bow. He wandered aimlessly through the rooms, glanced at the visitors and saw that they were many, and when he had become thoroughly warm, screwed his courage to the sticking point and went out of the front entrance. A little way from the guides he took his place, and from his pocket his figurine. It showed quite as a lily in the foggy light, pale and ashamed. Its nudity appealed more to the sculptor because of this wanton exposure to the vulgar herd. He trembled, began to regret, but offered it, holding it out for sale.

Some dozen people pa.s.sed him, glanced at him and his small statue, but he would have pa.s.sed unnoticed had a lady not come slowly down the steps and seen him, stopped and looked at him, though he did not see her until she had approached. He flamed scarlet, covered his statuette and wished that the cobbles of the pavement would open and swallow him.

She was--he thought of it afterward a hundred times--a woman of singular tact and an illumined sympathy, as well as a woman of exquisite comprehension.

"Mr. Rainsford!" she exclaimed. "You have something to sell?" she added, and simply, as though she spoke to an ordinary vendor, yet he saw that as she spoke a lovely colour rose in her cheek under her veil, and he found that he was not ashamed any more.

She put out her hand. It came from a mantle of velvet and a cuff of costly fur--he couldn't have dreamt then how costly. He lifted his hat, bareheaded in the cold, and laid the little figure in her hand.

"How perfectly charming!" she murmured, holding it. And the dryad-like figure, with its slender arms above its head and the faun-like, brilliant little face, seemed perfection to her. She said so. "What a perfect thing! Of course, you have the clay original?"

Fairfax could not speak. The sight of this woman so worldly, elegant, sumptuous, at the first praise of his little statue, he realized that he was selling it, and it struck him as a crime--his creation, his vision, hawking it as a fish-wife might hawk crabs in the public street!

He felt a great humiliation and could have wept--indeed, tears did spring to his eyes and the cold dried them.

Two "sergents de ville" came up to them.

"Pardon, Monsieur," asked one of them, "have you a license?"

Fairfax started, but the lady holding the little statue turned quickly to the officials--

"A license? _Pourquoi faire, mes amis?_"

"It is against the rules to sell anything in the streets of Paris without a license," said the policeman.

"Well," she exclaimed, "my friend has just made me a gift. This gentleman is a friend of mine for whom I am waiting to take me to my carriage. Allez vous en," she smiled at them, "I will excuse you, and so will Monsieur."

She was so perfectly mistress of the situation that he had nothing to do but leave himself in her hands.

"You will let me take you home," she said, "in whatever direction you are going," and he followed her to her little carriage, waiting before the curb.

She got in, gave the address of his studio to her coachman, and the next thing he knew was that he was rolling over the pavement he had so painfully traversed a few hours before.

She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette lay on her lap.

At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven months ago--

"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr.

Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the price?"

And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long, stammered--

"Don't speak of price--of course, I don't know you well enough, but if you really like it, please take it."

"Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to--I adore it. Mr.

Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it, my dear Mr. Rainsford."

Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her, and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen her embarra.s.sed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage for them both.

He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personae of old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!"

He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself--not once had he yet come to the period of artistic despair.

During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the long period of labour injure his power of production. He chafed, indeed, but he felt his strength even as he pulled against the material things from which he had to free himself.

And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly up the Rue du Bac with his problems, he walked less alone that night than ever in his life, for he was absorbed in the thought of the woman.

He realized now how keenly he had observed her, that she was very charming and very beautiful. He could have drawn those dear features, the contour of her neck and chin, the poise of her head, the curve of her shoulder, and, imperceptible, but no less real and strong, her grace and charm made her an ent.i.ty to him, so much so that she actually seemed to have remained by his side, and he almost fancied, as he breathed the misty air, that he breathed again the odour of the scent that she used, sweet and delicate, and that he felt the touch of her velvet sleeve against his coat.

He still had in his possession one object, which, if p.a.w.ned, might furnish enough money to pay for a meal. It was a little seal, belonging to his mother, set in old gold.

This afternoon, before leaving the studio, he had thrust it in his waistcoat pocket, in case the little statuette did not sell.

They gave him five francs for it, and he laid in a stock of provisions, and with his little parcel once more he limped up the studio stairs to Dearborn, who, wrapped in the coverlet, waited by the stove.

He told his story, and Dearborn listened delightedly, his literary and dramatic sense pleased by the adventure.

They were talking of the lady when the concierge, toward nine o'clock, tapped at the door and handed Antony a thick blue envelope, inscribed "Mr. Thomas Rainsford" by a woman's hand.

"Tony, old man," said the playwright, as Antony's fingers trembled turning the page, "the romance of a poor young man has begun."

The letter ran as follows:--

"MY DEAR MR. RAINSFORD,

"I am anxious to have a small bas-relief of me, to give to Mr.

Cedersholm when he shall come over. Would you have time to undertake this work? I can pose when you like.

"I know how many claims a man of talent has upon his time, and I want to secure some of yours and make it mine. I venture to send this sum in advance. I hope you will not refuse it. Perhaps you will dine with me to-morrow and we will talk things over.

"Yours faithfully, "MARY FAVERSHAM."

Fairfax read this letter twice--the second time the words were not quite clear. He handed it across the table to his companion silently. The five-hundred-franc bill lay between the plate where the veal had been and the empty coffee cup.

Dearborn, when he had eagerly read the note, glanced up to speak to Fairfax and saw that he had turned away from him. In his figure, as he bowed over, leaning his head upon his hands, there were the first marks of weariness that Dearborn had ever seen. There had been weariness in the step that limped up the stairs and crossed the room when Fairfax had entered with the meagre bundle of food. Dearborn leaned over and saw his friend's fine profile, and there was unmistakably the mark of fatigue on the face, flushed by fire and lamp-light. Dearborn knew of his companion very little. The two had housed together, come together, bits of driftwood on the river of life, drawn by sympathy in the current, and few questions had been asked. He knew that Rainsford was from New Orleans, that he had studied in New York. Of Antony's life he knew nothing, although he had wondered much.