The Pest 21

The Pest 21

“I wonder what you read in my face?”

 

“What I think I see there, I shall try to paint—and then, why, then, no

one may be able to see in my painting what I have tried to put there.”

 

“Not even I?”

 

“Probably you least of all.”

 

“Perhaps you’re right. I do fancy I don’t know much about myself. I used

to think everybody liked me—” she hesitated and then turned toward the

window, keeping silent for a time.

 

“I suppose you look at people’s faces in quite a different way to what

other people do, Mr. Maddison?” she said after a while.

 

“At any rate I think I do. If a face seems to have a story to tell, I

like to read it. But most faces are masks to empty heads.”

 

She again kept silent, then stood up.

 

“May I come and see how you’re getting on?”

 

“Not yet, please—I’d rather you waited until I’ve finished; I can’t

work if I’m watched.”

 

She wandered aimlessly about the room, her thoughts evidently intent

upon something of which she desired but hesitated to speak.

 

“Is Alice Lane’s face a mask to an empty head?” she asked suddenly,

looking at him keenly.

 

The question startled him, and he hesitated how he should answer it,

making absorption in his work his excuse for not immediately replying.

 

“Miss Lane’s—eh? Oh—no, I should say she has a very decided

character.”

 

“A strong character, you mean?”

 

“Ye-es—you might put it that way.”

 

“She loves my husband.”

 

“Mrs. West!”

 

“Oh, of course that’s an extraordinary thing for me to say to anybody,

especially to you, who I don’t really know. But I must speak to someone,

and I’ve no relations and no real friend—unless you’ll be one.”

 

Maddison left the easel, and went across the room to where she was

standing by the window.

 

“Mrs. West, take my advice: don’t tell me any more, and don’t ask me

anything. I—don’t see how—I know that I can’t help you——”

 

“You won’t help me?” she asked, disappointment in her tone. “You won’t?

I—thought you would.”

 

“Not won’t—_can’t_.”

 

“How can you tell? I’ve not really told you anything yet.”

 

“You’ve told me enough for me to be able, more or less, to guess the

rest—and I’m sure that there is only one person in the world that can

really help you—you must help yourself.”

 

“That’s so easy to say. I don’t know how. I don’t know how.”

 

She sank down upon the window seat, burying her face in her hands, and

sobbing in a quiet, childish fashion. Intense pity for this helpless,

weak woman touched him, but he knew that her only real chance of

salvation in this world was for her to find herself through suffering,

and that if she continued to depend upon any other for support, she

would never be strong enough to stand alone. He did not speak until she

raised her face, and her sobbing had almost died away.

 

“Of course you will think me very hard-hearted and brutal, Mrs. West,”

he said, “but I must risk that. If things are going wrong, you must help

yourself. The only thing I can do is to tell you that from what I know

of your husband, he would love his wife to be as strong and

self-dependent as himself. Now, please go back to your chair, and sit as

you were at first.”

 

His heart was full of sympathy for the weak, little woman, so pretty, so

vain, so helpless. There was little chance, he felt sure, that she would

ever develop into strength, or that she would retain her husband’s

affection, if Alice Lane—quiet, determined, and very passionate as he

believed her to be—were bent on winning it. West’s restless manner and

talk had shown that something was amiss. The old story—the vessel of

porcelain and the vessel of iron. She a joy to him so long as she

continued to amuse and please, but thrown aside broken, when her charm

had gone. Maddison had foreseen some such event as this, but had not

thought that she would suffer greatly, or at any rate, for a length of

time, taking her to be one who would be content with luxuries and pretty

things. But he realized now that there was a depth of affection in her,

childish perhaps, but none the less deep, which might lead to tragedy,

if West turned her out of his life. But he knew that he was helpless to

assist: West was masterful and ruthless; the pity of it was that he had

been so blind as not to see that this simple child could not long

content him.

 

He scarcely dared look at the pitiable face that he must truly reproduce

upon his canvas. Could he allow anyone save herself to see this portrait

of an unhappy woman?

 

Then it occurred to him that perhaps he was unduly apprehensive; that

after all, his first surmise might be correct, and that when she had

ceased to cry for her lost toy, she would dry her eyes and be happy with

something more costly and less valuable than human love. At any rate,

there was no aid that he could render; the tragedy, or the comedy, must

play itself out, with himself among the spectators.

 

Before he had released her, the other two returned.

 

“Come along,” shouted West; “it’s getting late. We won’t come in.”

 

As they were leaving the studio, Mrs. West held out her hand to

Maddison, saying:

 

“Thank you. You said you couldn’t help me—but you have.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

 

PROBABLY Maddison alone knew that Mortimer was not the empty-hearted

cynic that he wished the world to believe him to be. Mortimer’s terrible

handicap was that his character was for the most part a compound of

tender-heartedness and shyness. A jeer, a jest at his expense, a snub, a

misunderstanding, a rebuff of proffered sympathy cut him to the quick,

and he had gradually schooled himself into presenting to his friends,

even to those with whom he was intimate, an exterior of callous

carelessness, not realizing that while by so doing he would save himself

from much pain, he would inevitably also deprive himself of some of the

highest joys a man can experience. A true-hearted woman’s love would

have rescued him from his error, but the woman he had loved had sold

herself to a Jew for diamonds and a house in Park Lane. Living so

self-centered as he did, or rather so self-contained, Mortimer’s friends

were few, while his acquaintances were innumerable. The one he knew best

was George Maddison, to whom he was attached, and attached not so much

because he found in him any true comradeship, but because he felt for

him a certain pity. He knew how much there was of splendor in Maddison’s

nature and he knew equally well how much there was of weakness. He

looked upon him as a fair-weather sailor, a man who delighted to rove

over sunlit, peaceful seas, who loved to listen to the voices of the

sirens and who, if caught by Circe’s enchantments, might sink down among

the beasts. Indeed, he counted him very much as a brilliant, passionate,

wayward child. So far Maddison had met with no storms, the wind had

always been fair, the sun unclouded, the sirens more attracted by him

than he by them, but this attachment, this passion for Marian,

frightened Mortimer. An absorbing love for a good woman might have been

Maddison’s salvation, but Marian was utterly bad in his estimation, and

he could not perceive ahead anything save misery. That Marian would not

rest content with Maddison’s love and protection he was assured; already

she might be playing false to him; when Maddison discovered—as discover

one day he must—that he had adored and sacrificed himself to a false

goddess, what would be the outcome? If Maddison had been strong, the

stinging lesson might prove a purifying trial; but—Maddison being weak

in all save his art and his passion, what could possibly be the upshot

but tragedy? The greater the hold she gained upon him the greater the

disaster. It delighted Mortimer that Maddison had left town;