- 

 
 The Flaw in the Marble
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY SERIES 
 
 In the Midst of Alarms , . Robert Barr 
 The Devil's Playground . . John Mackie 
 The Face and the Mask . . Robert Barr 
 The Phantom Death . W. Clark Russell 
 The Sale of a Soul . F. Frankfort Moore 
 Dead Man's Court . Maurice H. Hervey 
 Sinners Twain .... John Mackie 
 
 Toxin Ouida 
 
 I Married a Wife . John Strange Winter 
 Diana's Hunting Robert Buchanan 
 Dartmoor .... Maurice H. Hervey 
 From Whose Bourne. . . Robert Barr 
 The Flaw in the Marble 
 
 IN PREPARATION 
 
 Vauder's Understudy
 
 "LANTHONY STRUCK RIGHT AND LEFT AT 
 
 THE MARBLE FIGURE." Ptlge2Jj.
 
 The 
 Flaw in the Marble 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 HARRY C. EDWARDS 
 
 flew Korfe atrt lonj-on 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright) 1896, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " 'LA JOCONDE ' we used to call her, 
 because of her wonderful likeness to 
 Da Vinci's picture. She was more like 
 a picture than a woman, with her 
 habit of sitting absolutely motionless, 
 and that eternal smile of hers a smile 
 which seemed to make you feel that 
 she had known all about you for ever 
 so long without any telling, had per- 
 haps, an unlimited contempt for you 
 and, a little pity too." 
 
 The speaker was Martelys the 
 painter, and the person he addressed, 
 Wayne of the American Legation, but 
 lately arrived in Paris. The woman 
 he spoke of had some years before 
 been known to most of us personally, 
 and to all of us by reputation the 
 famous actress Madeleine Le Fagon, 
 
 17-170GS
 
 4 Cbc ff law in tbe /ibarble. 
 
 the news of whose recent death at 
 Vienna was the chief item of interest 
 in the evening papers, and the little 
 sensation of the moment. She had 
 had a great success in Paris, but had 
 long since forsaken the scene of her 
 earlier triumphs for places further 
 afield, and had there attained a vast 
 professional popularity, and amassed, 
 it was said, considerable fortune. 
 Parisians do not easily forgive the 
 desertion of those who have reached 
 the pinnacle of popular favor with a 
 public alike the most critical and the 
 most capricious in the world ; and 
 many reasons, possible and impos- 
 sible, had been alleged for her abrupt 
 departure and her determined re- 
 fusal to return. But the mystery had 
 remained a mystery, and now she was 
 dead. 
 
 We had been dining together at the 
 Caf6 de Paris Martelys, de Fresnaye, 
 de Clavieres, the celebrated critic and 
 playwright, Rooselinck, the animal 
 painter, Vibecq, the actor, Wayne, and 
 myself and after dinner had adjourned 
 to Martelys' studio in the Rue Vivi- 
 enne. One or two other men had 
 dropped in, and at the time talk turned
 
 jflaw in tbe Garble. 5 
 
 on Le Fagon we were about a dozen 
 in all. 
 
 " And was she really so very beauti- 
 ful ? " asked Wayne ; he was, as I 
 have said, new to Paris. No one ans- 
 wered immediately each of us had his 
 own opinion, yet none of us seemed to 
 care to put it into words. 
 
 " I never admired her myself," said 
 a late-comer whose face was unfamiliar 
 to me. 
 
 "Take care, Raoul," said Martelys, 
 smiling, " qui s 1 excuse s 1 accuse" 
 
 " Beauty is a question of taste," said 
 Rooselinck, sticking out his fat legs in 
 front of him, and emitting a huge 
 cloud of smoke. " You would find 
 plenty of men to tell you ' Yes,' and 
 at least as many to tell you ' No.' Her 
 features were very perfect, and all 
 that ; but she had very little life in her 
 face her expression was always the 
 same." 
 
 (" Except when it varied," interpo- 
 lated Vibecq.) 
 
 " However, if you want an exhaust- 
 ive opinion, you can't do better than 
 ask Martelys ; she sat to him more 
 than once for her portrait." 
 
 Wayne looked inquiringly at our
 
 6 Gbe fflaw fn tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 host, who was silent for a moment and 
 then said slowly, "You will have 
 ample opportunity of judging for your- 
 self in a day or two, for every shop 
 window in Paris will once more be solid 
 with photographs of her. Ce que cest 
 de nous / Only twice is a great artist 
 or celebrity so far honored by the 
 crowd as to make such advertisement 
 profitable when he has scored his first 
 big success, and when he dies." 
 
 " She was an icicle, a veritable icicle, 
 that woman," broke in de Fresnaye 
 with curious emphasis ; " nothing in 
 the wide world had power to move her 
 or touch her in any way, neither suc- 
 cess, nor love, nor passion, nor popu- 
 larity, nor the want of it nothing! 
 except, perhaps indeed, money." 
 
 "Yes," said Rooselinck, "there is 
 very little doubt that she appreciated 
 that ; she knew better than most how 
 to make good terms for herself. I 
 believe, pure Frenchwoman though 
 she said she was, that there must have 
 been a good deal of the Jew in her." 
 
 At which there was a laugh, for the 
 speaker was himself a Jew. 
 
 " I don't believe she cared for money 
 in itself," remarked de Clavieres, " only
 
 Jflaw in tbe ^barbie. 7 
 
 for what it brought her. She loved 
 luxury, and every enjoyment and 
 pleasure of life save one," he added 
 musingly. 
 
 Had he by chance been one of the 
 many who had worshipped without 
 hope, and burnt their incense in vain at 
 the dead woman's shrine ? The story 
 went that the genial de Clavieres, 
 now so indifferent to women and 
 sceptical as to love, had once thought 
 differently, but that the one woman on 
 whom he had set his heart had refused 
 him and laughed at his suit. I cannot 
 tell. 
 
 " I suppose there can be, at any 
 rate, no doubt about her art that she 
 was a great artist, I mean ? " asked 
 Wayne. 
 
 " That also is a question which may 
 be answered in two ways," replied 
 Martelys. "There is no denying her 
 marvellous power ; she was a born 
 genius, and she did not despise the 
 training necessary to mature her 
 talents, as so many born geniuses do. 
 But her creations, wonderful as they 
 were, left her cold. She could drive a 
 thousand people of a hundred different 
 types, and habits, and ideals, wild
 
 8 Cbe fflaw In tbe dbarble. 
 
 with enthusiasm, and feel no corre- 
 sponding thrill herself. She had not 
 merely the indispensable retenue 
 which is the result of training that 
 self-command which even in the most 
 impassioned scenes never for a mo- 
 ment lets an actor forget the how as 
 well as the why of his influence on 
 people's emotions she went beyond 
 that : she simply did not care." 
 
 " But how, in that case, did she 
 achieve being a great actress ? " queried 
 Wayne. 
 
 " One half of art is deceptive con- 
 vention, and the rest selection, plus 
 the faculty for unremitting and unim- 
 passioned observation," said de Fres- 
 naye. " She could reproduce every 
 emotion or passion common to man 
 without ever feeling any one of 
 them in any shade or degree : dans 
 un mot, she was a great actress." 
 
 " You say she could reproduce all 
 natural emotions," resumed Martelys, 
 " and you are very nearly right ; but 
 there is one which is said to be the 
 natural heritage of every woman, born 
 with her like her hands, or feet, or 
 eyes, which she never could convey 
 tenderness."
 
 Cbe flaw in tbc /fcarble. 9 
 
 " Only because it did not enter into 
 any of her parts," said de Clavieres 
 quietly ; " if it had, she would have 
 portrayed it as convincingly as any 
 other emotion. Nobody who has not 
 seen her act," he went on, turning to 
 Wayne, "can possibly realize the 
 power and truth with which she con- 
 veyed feelings which to her personally 
 were a dead letter. I speak ' en con- 
 naissance de cause,' for I have the mis- 
 fortune to be a critic, and my trade 
 has become a second nature to me. 
 And I have the further misfortune to 
 be a dramatic author; and who ever 
 heard of a playwright being satisfied 
 with the representation of his own 
 work ? Well, I speak now as both 
 author and critic. Madame Le Fagon 
 did me the honor to play the leading 
 part in more than one piece of mine, 
 and I give you my word I never knew 
 all they could mean until I saw them 
 played by her. I am thinking more 
 especially of ' Une Vaine Passion,' 
 and ' La Femme Incomprise.' It was 
 a case of sheer inspiration. She made 
 me realize at one and the same mo- 
 ment for, with all his vanity an 
 author is forced inwardly to recognize
 
 io ftbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 his limitations alike the pettiness of 
 my own art and the greatness of hers ; 
 a greatness which outstripped all 
 achievements of her forerunners, and 
 will never be equalled by any who 
 come after. And it was the same, in a 
 lesser degree, when I saw her in the 
 works of master-dramatists." 
 
 " She was marvellous, inexpressible, 
 indescribable," exclaimed Vibecq. 
 "When I tell you that I, vieux cabotin 
 que je suis, I used to find myself for- 
 getting the public, forgetting myself, 
 forgetting my cue, that I might stand 
 still and watch her ! And what a 
 voice she had ! " 
 
 " The most inexplicable thing about 
 her," said Rooselinck, " was her abso- 
 lute indifference to success she did 
 not care two sous for fame except for 
 the material good it brought her. 
 Many people who don't succeed affect 
 a cheap cynicism about success ; but 
 she was the only successful person I 
 have ever known who professed not to 
 care for it, and I believe she was sin- 
 cere in what she said." 
 
 " She did not care for the unreason- 
 ing enthusiasm of the crowd, granted," 
 replied de Clavieres, " but she certainly
 
 fflaw in tbe flbarble. n 
 
 cared in some degree for the approba- 
 tion of those who were qualified to 
 judge of her merits and to appreciate 
 the scope and balance of her powers." 
 
 What de Clavieres had said of him- 
 self was in a great measure true the 
 critic rarely forsook the man and he 
 had evidently for the moment com- 
 pletely forgotten that he had been 
 foremost among those whom he had 
 described as " qualified to judge." 
 
 " I am glad to hear on such excellent 
 authority, my dear Victor, that she ap- 
 preciated your admirable, if somewhat 
 effusive critiques," said de Fresnaye 
 with a smile; "but it is but fair that 
 our friend here " (nodding towards 
 Wayne) " should hear all there is to be 
 said upon both sides of a question 
 which, apparently, interests him so 
 greatly. I have the misfortune, mes- 
 sieurs, not to be a critic, and I there- 
 fore do not feel qualified to pronounce 
 judgment on actresses who were dead 
 before I was born ; and not being a 
 prophet, I dare not swear that Made- 
 leine Le Fagon will never be surpassed. 
 I content myself with saying that she 
 was undoubtedly the greatest actress I 
 ever saw, and probably the greatest act-
 
 jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 ress of our day. But I too happened to 
 know her personally and intimately, and 
 I have no hesitation in saying that the 
 term ' great artist ' can not be applied 
 to her. Why, she said over and over 
 again that her art, as art, was absolutely 
 nothing to her." 
 
 " It does not follow that her state- 
 ment was sincere," retorted de 
 Clavieres, " and it is a moral and intel- 
 lectual impossibility that it should be 
 true." 
 
 " You should never impeach a lady's 
 veracity, Victor," said the other with 
 somewhat of a sneer ; " besides, if you 
 deny the accuracy of her own account 
 of herself in this particular, what have 
 you to show for many other statements 
 made about her to-night that she 
 loved money, for instance, or that she 
 was indifferent to love and impervious 
 to passion ? " 
 
 " The one you have solely upon her 
 own authority, and she may have de- 
 ceived herself as she apparently de- 
 ceived you. The the other things," 
 continued de Clavieres after a scarcely 
 perceptible pause, " are proved, so far 
 as anything can be proved, by her 
 life."
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 13 
 
 " But why on earth," asked Wayne, 
 " if she cared neither for success, nor 
 for art, did she go through all the 
 drudgery of training and all the con- 
 stant strain of work necessary to make 
 her the actress she was? " 
 
 " The reason is not far to seek," 
 replied de Fresnaye, lighting a fresh 
 cigarette. " La belle Madeleine, as Vic- 
 tor was kind enough to tell us awhile 
 ago, loved luxury and ease oh ! but 
 yes, she loved them very much indeed. 
 These are attainable by a woman in 
 her position only in one of three ways 
 by marriage, by another less direct 
 road, or by her own exertions. The 
 two first, for reasons best known to her- 
 self, she rejected ; no man can claim to 
 have ever touched her heart or moved 
 her senses. She hated exertion, but 
 she hated poverty and all its attendant 
 evils worse ; and, as she perf erred being 
 beholden to thousands to dependence 
 on individuals, she devoted herself to 
 pleasing the public rather than a hus- 
 band or a lover." 
 
 De Fresnaye delivered himself of 
 this tirade with the utmost deliberation 
 and calmness, delicately purring at his 
 cigarette the while. Yet not so many
 
 14 be fflaw in tbe Garble* 
 
 years ago he, who was so calmly dis- 
 cussing the demerits (or merits ?) of 
 the dead woman, he too. . . But that, 
 after all, does not concern us. Here 
 probably the subject would have 
 dropped, but that Rooselinck, address- 
 ing a man who had taken no part in 
 the conversation, said, " We haven't 
 heard your views upon the matter, 
 Lanthony, yet you must have known 
 her as well as any of us." 
 
 Paul Lanthony, the famous sculptor, 
 was sitting at a table a little apart, 
 his elbow upon it, as his way was, his 
 hand shading his face from the light. 
 He shifted his position slightly so that 
 we saw his features. He had been, in- 
 deed, according to some people still 
 was, a singularly handsome man, but 
 there was a prematurely old and faded 
 look in his sunken eyes and heavily- 
 lined brow. 
 
 "I knew her yes," he answered 
 with the air of one who has just 
 aroused himself from a dream. 
 
 " She sat to you for your famous 
 < Circe,' did she not, monsieur ? " asked 
 Wayne. 
 
 " She sat to me yes," he replied, 
 *' but that was years ago." And so
 
 jflaw in tbe dfcarbte. 15 
 
 saying, he rose and strolled into an ad- 
 joining room. 
 
 " They say," said Rooselinck, as 
 soon as he had disappeared, " that he 
 too was mad about her." 
 
 " Possibly," said Martelys rather 
 hurriedly, " but, as he says, all that 
 was years ago." 
 
 One of the younger men asked some 
 questions as to the present where- 
 abouts of the 'Circe.' "That, too, 
 like the woman who sat for it, is a 
 mystery," answered Martelys. " It 
 was sold to a rich Hungarian Jew who 
 lived in Vienna, but now all trace of it 
 has been lost." 
 
 " There was a story that it was 
 
 brought back to Paris " began 
 
 Rooselinck. 
 
 " Yes ; but I don't believe there was 
 any truth in that. Carrolin never be- 
 lieved it, and he was bound to know." 
 
 The group broke up and drifted 
 about the room, and Wayne and I 
 took our leave. " Tell me," he asked 
 Martelys, who had followed us into 
 the hall (he has a boundless thirst for 
 information, has Wayne), " this woman 
 who acted all the things she didn't 
 feel, so wonderfully passion and all
 
 16 Gbe fflaw in tbe dfcatble. 
 
 the rest of it, you know did she never 
 play a part which brought out her 
 strongest characteristic ? Indifference, 
 I mean ? " he added. 
 
 " That, mon cher" answered the 
 other, with a queer little laugh, "she 
 
 kept for real life." 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 It so happened that I could have 
 told my inquisitive companion a good 
 deal more about "La Joconde" than 
 he had learned from the foregoing con- 
 versation. I had known her long and 
 intimately : what the others had said 
 about her was no news to me, but I 
 chanced to know something else be- 
 sides, though she had never told me, 
 which explained much that to them 
 was a sealed book. For Lanthony 
 had for years past been one of my 
 closest friends, and latterly his history 
 had been no secret for me. But 
 though death had removed, in so far 
 as she was concerned, all reason for 
 silence, he was still alive, and therefore 
 I refrained. To-day I am free to tell 
 my story, for he too has now passed 
 beyond the judgment of our little 
 world.
 
 PART I.
 
 ' / would not creep along the coast, but steer 
 Out in mid sea, by guidance of the stars"
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEY were doing a brisk business at 
 the Caf Restaurant Mirabel (com- 
 monly known as Mathieu's) on the 
 evening on which my story opens. The 
 restaurant, and the street in which it 
 stood, have alike been swept away in 
 the rage for improvement which has 
 metamorphosed so many quarters of 
 Paris within the memory of most of 
 us who are not, even now, so very 
 old ; but at the time of which I speak 
 it was a favored resort of many stu- 
 dents on the left bank of the Seine. On 
 this day, as on every day throughout 
 the year between six o'clock and eight, 
 the long, low smoky room on the 
 ground floor, which served as restau- 
 rant, was at its fullest ; almost every 
 table was crowded with parties of stu-
 
 20 Cbe fflaw In tbe flbarble. 
 
 dents, art students for the most part, 
 chaffing, gesticulating, eating and talk- 
 ing all at once ; distracted waiters 
 rushed hither and thither, in shirt 
 sleeves and white aprons, dashing 
 down " portions " of food and brocs of 
 wine in front of waiting customers, or 
 shouting orders through the dark pas- 
 sage at the far end of the room, which 
 led to the kitchens. 
 
 A young man, seemingly the only 
 solitary person in all this crowd of 
 noisy good fellowship, who had just 
 pushed open the swing-door leading 
 from the street, stood hesitatingly on 
 the threshold looking about for an un- 
 occupied table. There was only one, 
 apparently, and that was right at the 
 far end just alongside the door of the 
 passage I have mentioned. It was 
 generally vacant, that table ; every one 
 seemed to shirk it, but the young man 
 saw that it was his only chance of a 
 table to himself, and proceeded to 
 thread his way across the room to it. 
 He knew not a few of the diners there, 
 it appeared, to judge by the flying 
 greetings he received, and the some- 
 what derisive comments which were 
 made upon- him as soon as he had
 
 Cbc flaw in tbc fl&arble. 21 
 
 passed ; but no one asked him to join 
 their party, or offered to make room for 
 him, and he was glad they did not. 
 
 " Le Solitaire does not even allow 
 himself a treat the day he has won the 
 silver medal," said one. 
 
 " Ma foi, but it is not at Mathieu's 
 I should dine if the jury had but had 
 the sense to recompense my so admir- 
 able work by even the two-sous piece ! " 
 (The name vulgarly applied to the 
 bronze medal of the fourth class.) 
 
 " Bah ! it would be all the same if 
 he had been gold medallist and cttcort 
 into the bargain ; he would still dine 
 at that old table in the corner there, 
 all alone, with never a word to say for 
 himself, or a bottle to offer to his 
 friends ! " said a third. 
 
 The object of these uncomplimen- 
 tary remarks had by this time estab- 
 lished himself at his table, and sat 
 awaiting his dinner in moody si- 
 lence. He was a man of twenty-five or 
 so, but looked older ; his light brown 
 hair, cut very short, broke into crisp, 
 rebellious little curls round his forehead 
 and temples ; greyish-blue eyes, with 
 brows and lashes a shade or two darker 
 than his hair, lit a face which was
 
 3Fla\v fn tbe Garble. 
 
 striking and well-featured, though the 
 one point which should have rendered 
 it specially noteworthy a mouth of 
 singular beauty was hidden under a 
 moustache unusually thick and heavy 
 for his years. It was a contradictory 
 sort of countenance, in which the 
 dreamy abstraction of the eyes was 
 denied by the squareness of the jaw 
 and the firm modelling of the chin. 
 He was about the middle height, with 
 well-knit limbs, somewhat inclining to 
 length, and his hands, which were 
 rather large, were well formed and full 
 of nervous energy. 
 
 To-day he had scored his first suc- 
 cess, for his statue had been received 
 at the Salon, and the silver medal of 
 the second class had been decreed to 
 him. Yet he did not feel elated at his 
 good fortune. He had been to see his 
 statue a bronze figure of a running 
 man, about two-thirds life-size, entered 
 as No. 513 in the official catalogue, un- 
 der the designation simply of " A Run- 
 ner, the work of M. Paul Lanthony, 
 pupil of M. M. Cossac et Plon " ; and he 
 did not think much of it after all, this 
 No. 513 which a week ago he had felt 
 almost proud of. It looked a pigmy,
 
 jflaw in tbe dfcarble. 23 
 
 he thought, among the larger and 
 greater work which surrounded it, and 
 the crude, full light which beat down 
 on it seemed to throw into evidence 
 hitherto unsuspected defects. 
 
 Such depreciation was, no doubt, in 
 part produced by the mere physical de- 
 pression which is the natural reaction 
 from all excessive exertion of the 
 brain ; but it was also essentially char- 
 acteristic of the man. While his work 
 was still in progress, he could believe 
 alike in it and in himself ; but once it 
 was finished, he doubted both, and 
 often subjected his completed effort to 
 a less indulgent criticism than, as in 
 this case, it received from others. 
 
 Then he had wandered about, look- 
 ing at the exhibits of the few acknowl- 
 edged great men, and of the many 
 men who would perhaps some day be 
 great, until he felt his eyes blurred 
 with the glare and his head buzzing 
 with the noise about him ; and then he 
 wandered out and decided, as he walked 
 along the streets, that he hated ex- 
 hibitions. He was unused to crowds, 
 and their noise, which acts as a stimu- 
 lating influence on some, irritated and 
 unnerved him. It struck him after a
 
 24 Gbe jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 bit that, besides being tired, he 
 was very hungry, and so he made his 
 way to Mathieu's to dine there, as 
 he had done any day the last five 
 years. 
 
 The cuisine at the Cafe Mirabel was 
 not noted for its excellence, and he 
 certainly did not dine there, as so 
 many others did, for the sake of the 
 company. He had been introduced to 
 the restaurant shortly after his arrival 
 in Paris by a studio-mate at Cossac's, 
 and had continued to dine there ever 
 since from habit and from indifference. 
 One must eat somewhere, and one place 
 was as good as another to him. More- 
 over, there was about him, in all 
 matters not relating to his art, a cer- 
 tain shyness and mauvaise honte, which 
 debarred him from voyages of dis- 
 covery into the glittering world of 
 Paris beyond his o'wn very limited 
 horizon. He hardly knew more of it 
 than the tourists who pay it a flying 
 visit. Indeed, it is to be doubted 
 whether he had even seen as much of 
 its sights as they. Some one had 
 once said of him, that he regarded 
 Paris simply as a city which held 
 the museum of the Louvre ; and if
 
 jflaw in tbe Garble. 25 
 
 one adds to this that he looked upon 
 the studio system as its one other 
 attraction, it would be a pretty correct 
 epitome of his ideas. He did not 
 know, he did not want to know more 
 about it than this ; and, though he 
 continued to live in Paris, he remained, 
 both at the time I speak of and for 
 some years after he had become one of 
 its celebrities, " a provincial " both in 
 heart and tastes. 
 
 To-night, however, his loneliness 
 amidst the laughing and chattering 
 crowd which surrounded him was 
 borne in upon him, as he listened to 
 the various groups of comrades descant- 
 ing upon their successes, or making 
 merry over their failures. He was 
 among them but not of them, nor did 
 he desire to be ; yet he sometimes felt 
 his aloofness from the things and peo- 
 ple about him, none the less, perhaps, 
 that it was in great measure of his own 
 choosing. 
 
 Shortly before his fellow-students 
 had started discussing him with more 
 or less disfavor, two men, each pretty 
 well at the top of his own particular 
 tree, had been talking about him too. 
 One of these was Xavier Plon, the
 
 26 abe jflaw in tbe dfoarble. 
 
 doyen of Paris sculptors and Lanthony's 
 present master, the other, Leon Carro- 
 lin, the portrait-painter, his best, al- 
 most his only friend. They were both 
 well-known figures in the Paris of that 
 day. Who does not remember Plon's 
 leonine white mane, his black velvet 
 coat, his huge feet encased in yellow 
 boots (long before yellow boots were 
 thought of for the rest of the world), his 
 gruff voice and his red-cotton pocket- 
 handkerchief ? Or Leon Carrolin's 
 handsome face and ready grace of 
 manner? Plon was called by his 
 pupils and admirers v Le Roi des 
 Grecs," from his religious devotion to 
 antique ideals ; and Carrolin was, as 
 every one knows, the most modern of 
 modern portrait-painters, and an 
 equally devout worshipper of every- 
 thing that went to make up the Paris 
 of his time. There were close on 
 thirty years between their ages, and 
 more than twenty centuries divided 
 their ideals ; they, differed on almost 
 every subject under heaven, and told 
 each other so, and were the best 
 friends in the world. 
 
 Meeting together late that after- 
 noon at Ledoyen's they immediately
 
 jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 27 
 
 fell to discussing Lanthony's $ Run- 
 ner," his first exhibited work. 
 
 " Eh bicn ! " said Plon, rubbing his 
 hands, " I hope that fellow is moving 
 along he will go far." 
 
 His remark applied to the statue, 
 but Carrolin took it as relating to his 
 friend. 
 
 " I think so, I hope so," he replied. 
 " It is a great advance on anything he 
 has yet done, but there is something 
 wanting to it. . Beautiful as it is, it 
 lacks life. It is full of careful obser- 
 vation and patient effort, but it is the 
 work of a man who has spent his time 
 looking at statues rather than at 
 human beings." 
 
 Plon was up in arms at once on 
 behalf of his favorite pupil. 
 
 "And if he has? It is the best 
 school in which to train the eye and 
 hand : far better to study human form 
 as it should be, as the Greeks under- 
 stood it, bien entendu, than to fribble 
 away time, as you and your fellows do 
 in looking at it, as it is and shouldn't 
 be. Point me out any essential defect 
 of bone or muscle or action in this 
 'Runner' of Lanthony's . . . je vous 
 t'coute."
 
 28 ftbe iflaw {n tbc /Hbarble. 
 
 " It is a very accurate model of a 
 running man, granted," replied the 
 other, " but the sentiment of life is 
 wanting ; it is a well-formed figure 
 shaped in the received action of fast 
 running, not an eager, breathless being, 
 straining every nerve to win a race." 
 
 " Bah ! " growled Plon, who did not 
 care for any art-criticism except his 
 own. " You know nothing about it, 
 Leon, you who spend your life paint- 
 ing pretty things like that," pointing 
 his ash-stick at a woman passing in the 
 street. " I tell you he is the best pupil 
 I ever had and this is the best thing 
 he has yet done." 
 
 " It is a good deal the fault of the life 
 he leads," said Carrolin, pursuing his 
 own reflections : " he makes no friends, 
 has no pleasures, goes nowhere, sees 
 nobody. Why, all Paris all the world, 
 for him lies for six days out of seven 
 between the four walls of your studio, 
 and the seventh he spends worshipping 
 some marble god or goddess in the 
 Louvre. That is all his life." 
 
 " And a very good life too," rejoined 
 his companion testily. " That is the 
 way that an artist worth the name 
 should live. If they all tried to be
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 29 
 
 miserable hybrids of men of the world, 
 or men of pleasure, and artists, well 
 there would be more bad work than 
 there is already." 
 
 Carrolin smiled good humoredly, and 
 taking leave of his irascible friend left 
 the cafe on his homeward way. Plon 
 was wrong though, he said to himself ; 
 for men were not intended to be 
 hermits, and artists were but men after 
 all. 
 
 Moreover, he doubted that to be 
 wholly absorbed in one idea to the 
 exclusion of all others was conducive 
 to greatness ; for, while she is a jealous 
 mistress, and reveals her secrets only 
 to those who patiently woo her, art is 
 but the presentment of life and was 
 it possible for a man to become a 
 great artist who avoided contact with 
 the living beings whom he sought to 
 represent? 
 
 Of one thing at any rate he was 
 sure, and that was that " all work and 
 no play makes Jack a dull boy " ; and 
 he determined to try and rouse Lan- 
 thony to take the same view. Very 
 likely it would be no use, for Lan- 
 thony was as obstinate as obstinate 
 as Plon, as obstinate as no one except
 
 30 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 a very great man has any right to be, 
 as obstinate as no really great man 
 ever is. 
 
 " I'll wager he is dining just as 
 usual at Mathieu's gargote" he said 
 with a shrug ; " well, it is not there he 
 \vill dine to-night." 
 
 He went to Mathieu's and stood 
 just inside the door looking about the 
 room, much as Lanthony himself had 
 done. He spied him at length, and 
 made straight for him. 
 
 "At last I find you," he exclaimed 
 heartily. " I come to offer you my 
 congratulations, but I shall not do so 
 here. Parbleu ! it is not like this one 
 fetes one's first success. You are my 
 guest to-night ; we will dine at Big- 
 non's and drink to the 'Runner's' 
 health, and then we will go and see 
 Farivelle in ' Les Barbiches.' ' 
 
 " You are more than kind," said 
 
 Lanthony hesitatingly, "but " and 
 
 here he looked at his costume, which, 
 it must be confessed, was better suited 
 to Pere Mathieu's than to the other 
 side of the river. 
 
 " Bah ! we will take the Rue de la 
 Valliere in passing, and you can 
 change there's lots of time. Come
 
 Cbe jf law in tbe dbarble. 31 
 
 along," and linking his arm in Lan- 
 thony's he piloted him out of the 
 room. 
 
 This little scene had caused no small 
 excitement amongst the diners at the 
 adjacent tables, for Carrolin, the fa- 
 mous Carrolin, was known to all of 
 them by sight. " Sac a papier" said 
 one, " talk to me of luck ! Silver 
 medalist in the morning, and invited 
 by Carrolin in the evening." 
 
 "One can't get away from that 
 blessed Solitaire to-day," sneered 
 another ; " he'll die of a fit of so many 
 honors ! " 
 
 " And we shall all have to go into 
 mourning, hey?" 
 
 " Nasty stuck-up beast," growled a 
 fourth.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHILE the two friends are walking 
 to their dinner, I will do what I can 
 to satisfy a curiosity which has some- 
 times been expressed to me about 
 Lanthony's antecedents, by stating 
 briefly the little I have been able to 
 gather concerning his family history 
 and early life. He was a Belgian by 
 birth, and came of a stock which, 
 though belonging rather to the middle 
 than the upper class, had yet lived for 
 several, generations upon their own 
 land and devoted themselves to agri- 
 cultural pursuits. Left an orphan 
 almost in infancy he was brought up 
 by his uncle, the owner of Les Tou- 
 relles, the quaint old house, half 
 manor, half farmhouse, where he had 
 been born.
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble, 33 
 
 Of course, as he was afterwards to 
 become a celebrated artist, it will be 
 expected of me that I should furnish 
 evidence of his precocious genius. 
 But veracity compels me to admit that 
 in his early boyhood he gave no indi- 
 cations of any taste or aptitude for 
 what in later life became his supreme 
 preoccupation. As, moreover, he 
 showed himself to be lamentably 
 wanting in a turn for agriculture, his 
 uncle decided that he should follow a 
 commercial career, and to that end 
 placed him at the age of eighteen in 
 a house of business at Lige. During 
 a two years' residence there he made 
 it abundantly clear that, if unfitted 
 for farming, he was still less fitted for 
 trade. Yet it was at Lie"ge that he 
 found his real bent in life ; and, as so 
 many others have done, he found it 
 seemingly by chance. He himself has 
 told me the story. 
 
 He was something of a solitaire 
 even in those days, had few friends 
 and fewer amusements. One Satur- 
 day, a fete day, he wandered into an 
 exhibition for want of something 
 better to do, and this stray visit of an 
 idle moment proved in reality the
 
 34 be tflaw in tbe ^Barbie. 
 
 turning-point in his life. The pictures 
 struck him with wonder but left him 
 cold ; but when he reached the sculp- 
 ture gallery, his attention was ar- 
 rested by what he saw, and an interest 
 which he did not seek to analyze 
 awakened in him. 
 
 The exhibition boasted no originals 
 of any great merit, but possessed a 
 very fair collection of casts from the 
 antique, and before these Lanthony 
 lingered till turned out by the custo- 
 dian at closing time. He returned 
 again and again, and finally by imper- 
 ceptible degrees his mind was made 
 up : if it were possible to learn to 
 make things like those he had seen, he 
 would learn, no matter when, where, 
 or how. He overcame his natural 
 shyness, and made inquiries which re- 
 sulted in his entering as an evening 
 student at the local art-school the 
 last pupil in the lowest class. His 
 complaint now was that the evenings 
 were not long enough, and that if 
 time at the office-desk crawled, before 
 his drawing-board it flew. 
 
 The upshot of all this was that he 
 returned to Les Tourelles, and in the 
 course of a stormy interview with his
 
 fflavv in tbe ^Barbie. 35 
 
 uncle announced the plan he had made 
 for himself, in a very few words. He 
 said he intended to go to Paris and 
 study art, and neither threats nor 
 entreaties could move him from his 
 purpose. He was pecuniarily inde- 
 pendent of his uncle, as his mother's 
 small fortune had been left unre- 
 servedly to him, and the prospect of 
 being disinherited by the childless old 
 man who had hitherto regarded him as 
 his heir, weighed with him not at all. 
 " Go your own way, Paul," said his 
 uncle at last, " but life out yonder is 
 not as easy as you think, and some 
 fine day you will come back cap in 
 hand." Paul did come back, but not 
 cap in hand. Years afterwards, when 
 he was a far richer man than his uncle 
 had ever been, the old man on his 
 death-bed forgave him, and wished to 
 reinstate him as future master of the 
 old home. Paul went from Paris to 
 see him, and spoke kindly to him, for 
 he had outlived, and almost forgotten, 
 the rancor which had once existed 
 between them ; but he would not hear 
 of any alteration of his uncle's will 
 let Les Tourelles go to Cousin Amelie 
 and her children ; he did not want it ;
 
 36 be 3Flaw in tbe dfcatble. 
 
 what possible use could it be to him ? 
 When he had gone, the old man, as 
 soon as he had somewhat recovered 
 from his amazement at Paul's refusal, 
 said to his niece, " Did any one ever 
 hear the like? I offer him Les Tou- 
 relles, and he refuses it ! " 
 
 " He is a great man now, uncle," 
 said Amelie. 
 
 " Great, or little, he would not take 
 Les Tourelles ! It is not to be under- 
 stood." 
 
 Life had changed the one man, and 
 approaching death the other, yet there 
 remained in each points which neither 
 things present nor things to come 
 could alter. 
 
 Paul left Les Tourelles one bright 
 morning in January while the rime 
 still clung to the trees and the ricks 
 and the quaint white towers, sur- 
 mounted by black roofs, which gave 
 the house its name ; and any vague 
 regrets he felt at leaving the home 
 where he had spent his boyhood, or 
 his aunt who loved him, and of whom 
 he was really fond, were lost in gol- 
 den mists of expectancy. His man-
 
 fflaw in tbc flBarble. 37 
 
 hood lay all before him, and such re- 
 grets mostly become defined only after 
 the course of years has brought us 
 through hope to reality, and when life 
 has taught us that some of its less re- 
 garded gifts are perhaps its greatest 
 treasures. Those early days which 
 in our haste to begin we found so 
 slow in passing, what would we not 
 give to recall them, even for an hour, 
 as we stand panting on the hill-top 
 whither our winding road has led us ? 
 Those dead faces, homely enough, per- 
 haps, that were with us in our child- 
 hood, is there any beauty on earth to 
 compare with the lost look of their 
 patient kindliness? 
 
 Arrived in Paris he entered at Cos- 
 sac's studio, in the Rue Panache, to 
 which he had been recommended by 
 his master at Liege, and rented a small 
 room in an adjoining street. He was 
 unremitting in his work and wholly 
 wrapped up in it. He did not find his 
 life as difficult from a pecuniary point 
 of view as his uncle had hoped. But 
 then he was content with very little : 
 the studio was his home, and his art 
 was his work and play alike. They 
 did not think much of him at Cossac's
 
 38 Gbe JFlaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 his fellow-students considered him a 
 wooden-headed provincial dolt, and his 
 master, who ran that so-called fab- 
 rique de nouveautfe, had so little sym- 
 pathy with his Greek ideals that he 
 found it hard to admit his real talent. 
 He might have sought surroundings 
 more to his taste, and training more 
 in accordance with his faith, but 
 he was new to Paris and did not 
 want to waste time in making inquiries, 
 nor to lose the opening he already 
 had. 
 
 It so chanced that Le"on Carrolin 
 was still an occasional visitor at Cos- 
 sac's and he was much struck with 
 Lanthony's work. He made acquaint- 
 ance with the lad, and came to take 
 an interest in him personally. He ad- 
 mired his stolid persistence in the face 
 of difficulties, his whole-heartedness 
 about his trade, and understood, 
 blagueur though he was himself, the 
 young fellow's sparsely worded enthu- 
 siasms. He saw very clearly that Cos- 
 sac's was not the place for him, so one 
 fine day he went and told Plon that 
 there was a pupil after his own pagan 
 heart wasting his time and talents at 
 Cossac's, and advised him to go and
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 39 
 
 see his work. Plon " poohed " and 
 " bah-ed," and went which resulted 
 in his taking forcible possession of 
 Lanthony, who thenceforward worked 
 under him.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CARROLIN and Lanthony had fin- 
 ished their dinner, a dinner the excel- 
 lence of which had been completely 
 thrown away upon the younger man. 
 "And now," said Carrolin, filling his 
 and his companion's glass, "let us 
 toast your success." 
 
 "It is a very small success," mur- 
 mured Lanthony, flushing with pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 " Walking consists of steps, my 
 friend," rejoined the other; "we begin 
 by doing great little things, and if we 
 persevere, we end by doing little great 
 ones. But whatever fame may come to 
 us in course of time, nothing is ever 
 half so sweet as our first success." 
 
 Lanthony stared to hear such talk 
 from the man who was allowed to be
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 41 
 
 the first painter of the day in his own 
 line, and who, moreover, did not deny 
 his claim to the title. 
 
 " If you will let a friend and brother- 
 artist advise you, Lanthony," contin- 
 ued Carrolin, in a brisker tone, "you 
 will now leave Plon's and start on your 
 own account. No better school for 
 you while you needed one, but you 
 have been in leading strings long 
 enough too long, in fact, if I may say 
 so." 
 
 If he expected a rebuff, or a dis- 
 claimer, he was pleasantly disap- 
 pointed, for Lanthony had already 
 made up his mind to take over a dis- 
 used room in the house in which he 
 lived in the Rue de la Valliere, as a 
 studio. It was admirably suited for 
 the purpose, he said, was large, airy,, 
 and had capital light, and as it was 
 built on a return from the main build- 
 ing, the necessary top-light would be a 
 mere bagatelle which could be easily 
 arranged with his landlord. 
 
 Carrolin professed himself delighted, 
 and then, changing the subject, began 
 to point out various celebrities who 
 happened that night to be dining in 
 the restaurant. The room had thinned
 
 42 tlbe JFlaw In tbe 
 
 out, for they had arrived late, and 
 eaten their meal in leisurely fashion, 
 but several tables were still occu- 
 pied. 
 
 " Do you see that man there with 
 the pale face and pointed beard, with 
 violets in his button-hole ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Lanthony, "what a 
 striking head ! Who is he? " 
 
 "That is Victor de Clavieres, the 
 critic, who has given the ' Runner ' a 
 very favorable notice, in his article on 
 the sculpture section." 
 
 Then, catching de Clavieres' eye, he 
 signed to him to come to them. De 
 Clavieres rose and came across the 
 room, and Carrolin introduced him to 
 Lanthony, whom he congratulated in 
 a few kindly and well-chosen words on 
 his success. 
 
 " You are feting our rising sculptor 
 to-night ? " he said, " and how do you 
 propose to finish the evening, Leon? " 
 
 " We thought of going to see 
 Farivelle." . . . 
 
 " Oh ! that old farce is rubbish," 
 answered the other. " You had better 
 come with me and see Le Fagon in 
 ' Une Vaine Passion.' You have seen 
 her, of course, monsieur," he added,
 
 fflaw in tbc flBarble. 43 
 
 turning to Lanthony, who confessed 
 that he never had. 
 
 De Clavieres in his triple quality of 
 Parisian, critic, and man of the world, 
 prided himself on never being aston- 
 ished at anything, but he found himself 
 vaguely wondering what manner of 
 man this could be who had lived for five 
 whole years in Paris and yet had never 
 seen Le Fagon ! " 
 
 " Well, she is worth seeing, and so 
 is the piece she is playing. I'm bound 
 to say that, for I wrote it, you know," 
 he said, laughing. " I have three stalls, 
 and two of them are at your service. 
 The third I keep for myself. What 
 do you say ? " 
 
 " Delighted," exclaimed Carrolin, as 
 indeed he was. 
 
 " We had better be moving," said de 
 Clavieres, looking at his watch ; " we 
 are late already." 
 
 When they reached the Theatre 
 Splendide, the then scene of Madeleine 
 Le Fagon's triumphs, the curtain had 
 just gone down on the first act, and she 
 had yielded to the tumultuous applause 
 which demanded her re-appearance. 
 
 Lanthony was half dazed by the 
 lights, the noise, and the excitement
 
 44 Gbe fflaw in tbe flbarble. 
 
 about him, but as he stumbled into his 
 stall over the feet of those already 
 seated, he had a momentary vision of 
 a single figure upon the stage, the fig- 
 ure of a woman in ordinary evening 
 dress, a spray of pomegranate flowers 
 twisted into her dark hair, her hands 
 loosely clasped in front of her, as, smil- 
 ing the while, she swayed her small 
 head, with a royal indifference to the 
 plaudits which greeted her. Only a 
 moment, then she vanished. She did 
 not make her exit at the side, in the 
 usual way, but merely took one step 
 backwards, and the curtain descended 
 slowly in front of her. 
 
 The last thing he consciously saw, 
 and the first thing he had seen, were 
 her arms. And now that shutting his 
 eyes he tried to recall the picture as a 
 whole, all he could distinctly realize 
 about it were those arms those arms 
 and the impression of a luminous, 
 embracing, impersonal, impenetrable 
 smile. 
 
 His companions had remained stand- 
 ing, and were cheering with the rest, 
 but she did not come in front again. 
 
 Men got up and went out, or moved 
 about the corridors and paid visits to
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 45 
 
 the different boxes. The house was 
 very full and in gala-array, but that 
 was always so on Le Fagon's nights, 
 for all that was smartest and best 
 dressed, wittiest and most beautiful, 
 most celebrated, or notorious in Paris, 
 flocked to see and hear her. 
 
 De Clavieres had left his seat, but 
 the other two remained where they 
 were, Lanthony lending but a half 
 attentive ear to Carrolin's amusing 
 epitome of the various beauties and 
 celebrities present, his eyes fixed stol- 
 idly upon the point in the curtain 
 behind which that astonishing vision 
 had disappeared. Five minutes more 
 and she would be there again, and he 
 would be able to study the line and 
 curve of those arms, and, as it were, 
 brand them on his brain. 
 
 On coming back de Clavieres told 
 them he had seen Le Fagon, with 
 whom he was engaged to sup that 
 night at her house in the Avenue des 
 Champs Elysees, and that she had bid 
 him ask Carrolin to come also. 
 
 " I told her," he went on, " that you 
 had a friend with you, and who the 
 friend was ; so then she invited him. 
 too."
 
 46 Ebe jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 He took their acceptance for granted, 
 for those who had the good fortune to 
 receive invitations from Le Fagon 
 never refused them they were as a 
 royal command. Carrolin rubbed his 
 hands together in silent satisfaction ; 
 his plan for Lanthony was running on 
 wheels. No one, he held, could see 
 Le Fagon de prh and remain indif- 
 ferent to her either as an artist or a 
 man. Of course it was a risk, as few 
 had better reason to know than him- 
 self, but he counted on his own experi- 
 ence to enable him to intervene at the 
 proper moment and play the part of 
 Providence to his friend. 
 
 A bell rang somewhere in the back 
 places of the stage, and was followed 
 by the customary three knocks, and 
 the curtain went up for the second act 
 which, as those who have seen " Une 
 Vaine Passion " will remember, con- 
 tains the most striking scene of that 
 forcible piece. A silence settled over 
 the throng who a few minutes before 
 had been laughing and talking, and it 
 grew denser as the action progressed. 
 There was no applause to mark the 
 supreme rendering of certain situa- 
 tions, and this less from the fact that
 
 fflaw in ibe Garble. 47 
 
 Le Fagon discountenanced any such 
 interruption, than from an overmaster- 
 ing absorption which held the multi- 
 tude as though with a spell. Every 
 eye was riveted on the stage, or rather, 
 upon one figure there, for no one 
 counted beside her the rest were 
 merely necessary adjuncts. Step by 
 step she led them through all the vary- 
 ing notes of passion sounded in that 
 wonderful act enchantment, doubt, 
 fear, rage, despair, and mere weariness, 
 till they forgot the actress and her art, 
 and felt as though this were no well- 
 played tragedy at which they were 
 gazing, but a living page torn from 
 the book of life. And this, I take it, 
 is a triumph of histrionic art which no 
 one but she has ever attained. 
 
 At the end of the closing scene 
 between Madame de Lapresnel and 
 her lover (whose part was played by 
 Vibecq) the curtain fell upon a dead 
 silence in the house, which continued 
 for a moment or two while the audi- 
 ence adjusted, as it were, the relative 
 positions of the two worlds, and awoke 
 to the real one again. Then they rose 
 in one universal transport of enthu- 
 siasm, men and women alike forgetting
 
 48 Cbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 themselves in the personality of the 
 woman who had lately stood before 
 them and played upon their heart- 
 strings as upon a familiar instrument ; 
 and shouts of " Le Fagon ! Le Fa- 
 gon ! " burst like a single cry from a 
 thousand throats. 
 
 The curtain went up once, twice, and 
 showed her standing motionless, and 
 unmoved by the frenzy of applause, 
 as she had been by the tears she had 
 drawn, the emotions she had excited, 
 the sweet and bitter remembrances 
 she had stirred, or the lesson she had 
 perchance taught a smile upon her 
 lips. 
 
 When it was all over, Carrolin, 
 glancing at Lanthony, saw him sitting 
 as one in a dream, his eyes staring at 
 the exact spot where she had been 
 standing. He was the only man in all 
 that vast assembly who had neither 
 moved nor spoken ; he was passion- 
 ately striving to imprint that fleeting 
 vision upon his brain. Carrolin, how- 
 ever, took his preoccupation to have 
 another sense, and said to himself that 
 such mute tribute to her genius was 
 one which Madeleine Le Fagon, with 
 all her real or professed indifference
 
 Cbe tflaw in tbc flbarble. 49 
 
 to appreciation, could not despise. He 
 waited a moment, and then said, 
 
 " Well, and what do you think of 
 her?" 
 
 "Men Dien ! what arms! "was the 
 reply. 
 
 Carrolin made a movement of impa- 
 tience. Would anything ever waken 
 this carver of stones into a man ? 
 The most beautiful woman in Paris 
 was for him but a collection of curves, 
 the exhibition of the finest achieve- 
 ment of dramatic art but a series 
 of varied possibilities for plastic pose ! 
 
 In the third act Le Fagon appeared 
 only in the short scene at the begin- 
 ning, and when that scene was con- 
 cluded the theatre rapidly thinned. 
 
 De Clavieres did not stay to witness 
 the scant courtesy evidenced to his 
 piece by the general exodus, for di- 
 rectly she had left the stage he rose 
 himself, and beckoning his companions, 
 led them out by a side door. But he 
 knew all about it, and moreover 
 thought it natural : people had come 
 to see Le Fagon, and once they had 
 seen the last of her, nothing else mat- 
 tered. 
 
 As the three men were walking to
 
 50 be jf law in tbe flbarble. 
 
 the house in the Champs Elyse"es, a 
 carriage whirled past them. Carrolin 
 and de Clavieres lifted their hats. 
 
 " That is Madame Le Fagon," said 
 Carrolin to Lanthony. 
 
 " Heavens what a woman ! " burst 
 out de Clavieres, after a second's si- 
 lence ; " to see her, to hear her, ex- 
 plains it all, the folly of men about 
 her, and the trouble she has caused 
 them." 
 
 He spoke as if he were not to be in- 
 cluded among the foolish or the sor- 
 rowful ; but Carrolin knew differently, 
 and he knew something else besides. 
 
 " Sometimes," he said, half to him- 
 self " sometimes one can almost be- 
 lieve it was worth it all just to have 
 seen and heard her." 
 
 They had arrived at the outer en- 
 trance of the hotel now, and walking 
 across a strip of garden were ushered 
 through a spacious hall and up a broad 
 staircase to the apartments on the first 
 floor. At the door of a small room 
 leading out of a large salon Madame 
 Le Fagon stood talking to one of her 
 guests. As our trio entered, she gave 
 them her hand, smiling to Lanthony 
 amongst the rest, scarcely looking at
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 51 
 
 him as she did so; and almost imme- 
 diately afterwards she led the way to 
 the supper-room. It was a small party 
 (she hated a crowd) : Madame de Le- 
 tort, grande dame, wit and ex-beauty, 
 a pretty young cousin of Madeleine's, 
 an elderly foreign diplomatist, an 
 Austrian Archduke, and Martelys the 
 painter. 
 
 As they sat down, Madeleine, turn- 
 ing to her cousin, said laughingly, 
 
 "You will stay up just long enough 
 after supper, Rose, to play us that 
 Gavotte from Mignon, and then to 
 bed, or you will be late to-morrow 
 morning, and the Conservatoire will 
 never let you come to me again." 
 
 The girl answered with a moue and 
 a smiling disclaimer, and conversation 
 became general. 
 
 If Lanthony had 'known more of the 
 world, many curious differences be- 
 tween this entertainment and the 
 ordinary run of festivities at the 
 houses of popular actresses might 
 have struck him notably, the refine- 
 ment which sobered and balanced the 
 pervading luxury, and the tone and 
 range of the conversation. But all 
 this was lost upon him, for he saw
 
 52 Ube fflaw in tbe jflfcarble. 
 
 nothing, and could think of nothing 
 but his hostess, as she sat there her 
 gleaming arms, the proud yet simple 
 forte of her head, and the slow wonder 
 of her smile. He was placed between 
 Carrolin and Martelys, with both of 
 whom he was intimate, and who were 
 so occupied in talking to each other 
 that his silence passed unnoticed. The 
 fixity of his gaze might perhaps have 
 jarred upon Madeleine, who had ob- 
 served it, as she did all else about her, 
 but for the distinctly impersonal char- 
 acter of its admiration. As it was, she 
 was amused and even faintly interested 
 by it, and at length looking full at him 
 with those strange, half-veiled eyes of 
 hers, she said in a low, clear voice, 
 " M. Lanthony, I drink to the health 
 of your ' Runner ' may he win his 
 race ! " lifting her glass, with a smile, 
 as she spoke. 
 
 To Paul it was as if the " Diane 
 Chasseresse," or some other glorious 
 abstraction among his marble divinities, 
 had spoken to him in human speech 
 from her pedestal. He started, blushed 
 crimson, and muttered an inaudible 
 acknowledgment. Madeleine resumed 
 her conversation with Madame de
 
 fflaw in tbe jflfcarble. 53 
 
 Letort, and shortly after, supper being 
 over, the party rose and drifted into 
 the next room. It was lit only by a 
 single green bronze lamp of antique 
 shape, hanging from the ceiling ; there 
 were two or three small pomegranate- 
 trees or bushes flowering in tubs about 
 the room, and a piano in one corner, at 
 which de Clavieres sat down to ac- 
 company Mademoiselle Rose. The 
 girl, taking her violin from its case, 
 played first the desired Gavotte, and 
 then at a whispered word from de 
 Clavieres broke into a slow, wailing 
 Polish melody. 
 
 Madeleine stood leaning against the 
 piano, slowly fanning herself with a 
 big curly fan of grey ostrich plumes, 
 her other hand hanging down by her 
 side. Lanthony stood by the further 
 door facing her, and gazing at her in 
 entranced observation. Her eyes rested 
 on his for a moment, as if drawn by 
 his gaze, then with a little smile in 
 which amusement struggled with indif- 
 ference, she moved slowly across the 
 room to where he stood. 
 
 " Man dne parle meme, il parle 
 bien" said Carrolin to her as she 
 passed.
 
 54 Cbe fflaw In tbe /Barbie. 
 
 " Seldom, you mean," she retorted 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 She sat down on a low chair in the 
 embrasure of a window close to where 
 Lanthony stood, and motioned him to 
 a seat beside her. 
 
 " You must feel very proud and 
 happy to-night, M. Lanthony," she 
 said her voice was " always music, 
 whatever the words," as some one had 
 once said, and if she told you that you 
 were proud and happy well, for the 
 moment you believed you were ; that, 
 or anything else she said. " For this 
 is your first success, is it not ? It 
 must be very nice to feel proud of one- 
 self," she added musingly. 
 
 Lanthony plucked at his courage 
 with both hands, and answered, " It is 
 curious to hear you speak of petty suc- 
 cesses, madame, you you, whose fame 
 is what it is." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and 
 answered, 
 
 " You would care for that ? I cannot 
 understand it. People go to see me 
 act because they have been told to, or 
 because they have nothing else to do, 
 and they applaud for much the same 
 reason. It is nothing to me."
 
 fflaw in tbe flbarble. 55 
 
 Lanthony stared at her in amaze, 
 and then for the humanizing of this 
 man had already begun, and he had 
 commenced half-consciously to realize 
 what such power over others meant 
 he said stoutly, 
 
 " I should care very little for the ap- 
 plause of an ignorant crowd who follow 
 each other's enthusiasms like a flock of 
 sheep ; but to command the praise of 
 those who know and can choose, and to 
 teach the rest to know and choose also, 
 to make blind eyes see that must be 
 a fine thing, I think." His face was 
 flushed, and his eyes glowed as he 
 spoke. 
 
 She looked at him for a moment or 
 two in silence, smiling, and her eyes 
 softened a little as she replied, 
 
 " Ah ! you are very young ! I sup- 
 pose I ought to agree with you, but I 
 don't. You see, even if one cares 
 about it at all, it is such a little, such a 
 very little thing in comparison with all 
 the trouble it costs ; and what does it 
 all amount to ? One must live, and 
 living means quite a number of things 
 according as people are made. To me 
 it means ease, luxury, beautiful sur- 
 roundings, in a word, money. The
 
 56 be fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 forests of trees hung with golden pieces 
 for fruit were all cut down ages before 
 I was born. One must make one's life 
 what one wants it to be, and to do 
 that one must work. But ct la longue 
 it just comes to this; my cook has to 
 cook my dinner and I well, I have to 
 serve up dainty dishes of another sort 
 to suit many masters. On the whole, 
 I think my cook has the best of it ! " 
 
 " But art ? " gasped Lanthony. 
 
 " Oh ! that, monsieur, is a very wide 
 question for those who understand it, 
 but, frankly, I am outside it. And 
 there, too, my cook has the advantage, 
 for he is an artist in his way, whereas I 
 am not." 
 
 Carrolin, who had been watching the 
 two, judged from the expression of 
 Lanthony's face at this juncture that 
 his education had progressed far 
 enough for one evening, and got up to 
 take his leave. 
 
 "You come in the nick of time," 
 said Madeleine as he reached her. " I 
 have been giving Monsieur Lanthony 
 the benefit of my views on art. Take 
 him away before I utter further un- 
 welcome heresies or truths. Indeed, 
 I wish all the others would follow
 
 Gbe tflaw in tbe Garble. 57 
 
 your good example and go away too, 
 for I am tired. Au revoir, Monsieur 
 Lanthony ; I am generally at home 
 between five and seven on Tuesday 
 afternoons. Bon soir, Carrolin ; I shall 
 see you again one of these days." 
 
 It was a lovely night, and Carrolin 
 said he would walk as far as the Rue 
 de la Valliere with his friend. Cross- 
 ing the Pont de la Concorde, he stopped 
 to light a cigar, and Lanthony leaned 
 idly over the parapet and looked at the 
 broken river with its dark shadows and 
 reflections of lights swirling along un- 
 derneath. 
 
 Neither had spoken since they left 
 the house, and during their silent walk 
 Carrolin had begun to feel qualms as 
 to his fitness for the role he had cast 
 for himself of playing Providence to 
 his friend. His scheme for making a 
 man of Lanthony might, he feared, 
 prove only too successful ; so now he 
 broke the silence with, 
 
 " Encore un avis, Lanthony. I 
 wouldn't go there too often, if I were 
 you. She asked you, I know (she 
 doesn't ask every one, by the way), and 
 if you go, she will be very kind and 
 charming to you oh ! but very charm-
 
 58 "ttbe JFlaw In tbe 
 
 ing for she often takes a capricious 
 interest just in the outsides of people, 
 but only for a little while. When she 
 gets to know them, and they her, she 
 ceases to take any interest ; she says 
 then they are all too much alike. So 
 she plays with them and smiles at them 
 until she has got their heart in the 
 hollow of her soft white hand, then she 
 squeezes it dead and throws them back 
 the empty husk." 
 
 He spoke with unusual bitterness, 
 and Lanthony, glancing at him, saw 
 that his face was very pale. 
 
 " You are young," he went on, " and 
 you do not know how should you ? 
 But I know, I, and plenty more besides. 
 She loves money and, though she 
 would deny it, she admires brains and 
 success. But riches cannot tempt her, 
 and neither fame nor passion nor love 
 can win her. Many men have tried 
 pour le bon motif and otherwise. 
 There was that poor young Russian, 
 for instance, who, with half Paris at 
 his feet, lived for nothing else for two 
 whole years but the hope of marrying 
 her, and the end of it all was that he 
 was found dead one morning in his 
 rooms in the Rue Royale. He had
 
 fflaw in tbc flbarble. 59 
 
 shot himself through the head ; when 
 they told Madeleine, she only smiled. 
 
 " Then there was a man known to us 
 both, known to all the world, whose 
 devotion would have made any woman 
 proud. She played with him, smiled 
 at him, and sent him away. There 
 was another too. . . It is chilly here," 
 he said suddenly, " let us move on. 
 This man was a young fool with noth- 
 ing much to recommend him, save an 
 immense power of loving. Well, he 
 has wasted his life in loving her and 
 her only. He knows it is no use, and 
 he knows that the power to do great 
 things has all left him, through her, 
 that all the world looks different from 
 what it did before he met her, and he 
 knows that love for a beautiful woman 
 can be death in life." 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Carrolin," 
 said Lanthony with evident feeling, 
 " but what has all this to do with me ? " 
 
 Carrolin looked at him curiously, as 
 if trying to read his thought, and then 
 said lightly, " Oh 1 you are a very fine 
 fellow, friend Paul, but you are but a 
 man like the rest of us." 
 
 Lanthony looked back at him and 
 then fairly burst out laughing.
 
 60 Gbe jflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 " But, my dear Carrolin, this woman 
 is, can be, no more to me than that 
 star which twinkles up there. She is 
 simply the most beautiful woman I 
 ever saw, and I would give ten years 
 of my life to be able to reproduce her 
 in marble. For the rest, it simply 
 does not exist for me, and she can no 
 more touch me than I her." 
 
 " Oh ! we all begin like that," re- 
 joined his friend ; " unfortunately, we 
 don't stay there, for we come to hope 
 that we may be successful where so 
 many better men have failed. Some 
 fine day in one way or another we try 
 to reach the star, but we never get 
 there ; we either die of our fall or drag 
 our aches and bruises about with us to 
 the end of our days. She cannot help 
 it," he added, with a tardy tribute to 
 loyalty ; " she is made that way." 
 
 " I shall never want to reach the 
 star," said Lanthony, looking up at it 
 as he spoke.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LANTHONY was strong in his own 
 conceit, like many another whose 
 youthful amour of self-confidence is as 
 yet unpierced by the rude thrusts of 
 life and experience. He knew noth- 
 ing of the world, and but little of him- 
 self, so he thought that he knew enough 
 of the first to serve his turn, and be- 
 lieved that his own nature held no 
 secrets for him. 
 
 It goes without saying that he did 
 not act upon Carrolin's well-meant 
 advice, hardly, indeed, gave it a second 
 thought ; for, as the latter had shown, 
 the experience of others seldom pro- 
 tects us from incurring our own pains, 
 nor are we apt to recognize the wisdom 
 of good counsels until we have proved 
 the folly of disregarding them. It is
 
 62 Gbe fflaw in tbe 
 
 not merely death which separates a 
 man from his fellows ; men live, as 
 well as die, alone, and the blindness in 
 which all begin, and all end, clings to 
 many through the days which inter- 
 vene. 
 
 Lanthony had been repeatedly to the 
 house in the Champs Elysees ; as 
 often, indeed, as he considered it pos- 
 sible to avail himself of the general in- 
 vitation extended to him. He had 
 had but little conversation with Made- 
 leine on those occasions, but talk was 
 not what he had gone there for ; he 
 had gone simply to gaze his fill at her, 
 to learn by repeated observation the 
 lines, the curves, the proportions of 
 that matchless form. When he had, 
 as it were, learned them by heart, why, 
 then he would go no more ; for what 
 was Madeleine Le Fagon to him ? So 
 he went week after week, and looked 
 and looked at that face and figure, in 
 the room where the pomegranates grew 
 and bloomed ; studied her in every 
 light, from every angle, much as a man 
 threatened with the living night oi 
 blindness seeks to store his mind with
 
 Gbe jflaw in tbe Garble. 63 
 
 images of loved things that soon he 
 shall look upon no more. Then he 
 went home and shut his eyes, and saw 
 it all again, and thought it out, and, so 
 to speak, modelled it in his mind ; and 
 then one day he began to give it tang- 
 ible shape. He modelled her hands 
 and arms, her throat, the contour of 
 her head, the long, suave, yet firm lines 
 of her form, one by one separately, 
 over and over again. And then he set 
 to work to piece them all together, 
 and started on a study of the entire 
 figure. 
 
 A rage of work was on him ; he never 
 left his studio except to sleep, he did 
 not even make a sensible break for the 
 meals which were brought to him 
 there, but ate standing at his model- 
 ling board, or walking about the room 
 looking at and considering his work 
 in different lights and aspects. He 
 denied admittance to all who came to 
 his studio ; Mathieu's knew him no 
 more, nor Plon's studio, nor the Louvre, 
 nor the house in the Avenue des 
 Champs Elysees. 
 
 Madeleine had got used to seeing 
 the young man standing about in some 
 corner of the room, his eyes following
 
 64 Hbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 her every movement, and on his disap- 
 pearance missed him much as one 
 might miss some familiar chair or table 
 which one had never consciously taken 
 count of until some one removed it. 
 She vaguely wondered what had be- 
 come of him ; but he would come back 
 again, of that she was sure. As the 
 weeks went on, however, and he did 
 not reappear, she said to Carrolin, who 
 had lingered one evening after the 
 other guests had gone, 
 
 " Dis, Lon, what has become of your 
 sculptor friend ? One never sees him 
 these days." 
 
 " Did he come here often ? " asked 
 Carrolin, who jhimself but seldom at- 
 tended her Tuesday receptions. 
 
 "At one time yes. He used to 
 stand about silently and gaze at me 
 and I " 
 
 " You ? Oh ! you smiled at him," 
 he finished for her. 
 
 She smiled now, and went on : 
 " There was never any use introducing 
 him to people, for he wouldn't talk, 
 and I shouldn't think he enjoyed him- 
 self. But he came again and again, 
 then all of a sudden disappeared . . . 
 let me see, three, four weeks ago,"
 
 ttbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 65 
 
 checking them off upon her long white 
 fingers. 
 
 Carrolin seemed preoccupied in his 
 own reflections, and he remembered 
 some proverb to the effect that those 
 who run away live to fight again. 
 
 " Well," she queried again, " is he 
 dead, or married, or " 
 
 " Oh ! no," he answered briskly, ris- 
 ing to go, " only very busy. He is 
 hard at work upon a statue which, 
 true to himself, he will allow no one to 
 see. He is one of those happy, or un- 
 happy men who live for their art alone, 
 and no beauty alive can compare in his 
 eyes with a marble Venus, no pleasure 
 or delight the world can offer can com- 
 pete with a lump of clay and a model- 
 ling tool." 
 
 He flattered himself as he moved 
 towards the door that he had stated 
 the position concisely and conclusively. 
 As he drew aside the portitre, a voice 
 called after him, 
 
 "A propos, Carrolin, where is his 
 studio ? Rue de la Valliere, is it 
 not ? But I forget the number." 
 Then as he hesitated, she added 
 with a little laugh, " Oh ! don't tell 
 me, if you have any scruples. I
 
 66 be fflaw in tbe flfcatble. 
 
 can easily find out from Martelys or 
 Plon." 
 
 That laugh stung him, and he flung 
 back " No. 49 " at her, as he left the 
 room. 
 
 The next afternoon a Wednesday 
 Lanthony was disturbed at his work 
 by a low tap at the door. It was then 
 somewhere between four and five, and 
 the sound was neither the thump fol- 
 lowed by a grunt, with which the por- 
 ter generally announced his presence, 
 nor the cheery rat-tat-tat affected by 
 his friends and acquaintances. While 
 he was wondering who it could be, 
 the tap was repeated. 
 
 " Put it down outside," he bellowed, 
 imagining it must be the porter's wife 
 with some coffee he had ordered. 
 
 He was in the ddsJiabille which he 
 usually affected in his working hours : 
 he wore a loose holland blouse over 
 his shirt, and the sleeves of both were 
 rolled up to the elbows, the ends of his 
 trousers were drawn up and tucked 
 into his socks, and his feet were shod 
 in a very ancient pair of red leather 
 slippers much trodden down at heel. 
 A cigarette, which had of course gone 
 out, was between his lips, and he was,
 
 $ law in tbe fl&arble. 67 
 
 moreover, remarkably dirty ; his hands 
 were smeared and streaked with model- 
 ling clay, and his blouse, his slippers, 
 and even his face and hair splashed 
 with little clots of greyish mud where 
 water had lit upon the dust with which 
 they were covered. He held a bucket 
 of water in one hand, and a sprinkling 
 brush in the other. 
 
 The meek little tap was again re- 
 peated. 
 
 " Mille tonnerres I " he growled, as 
 he hastily chucked a cloth over the 
 figure he had been at work on. Then 
 he mechanically picked up his bucket 
 and brush, and went towards the door, 
 which he opened grudgingly about a 
 couple of inches. And then he stared 
 aghast, for the living original of his 
 clay sketch stood before him. 
 
 "Do I disturb you?" she asked, 
 smiling, "or may I come in? I have 
 always wanted to see something more 
 of your work, and as Carrolin told me 
 you were engaged on a new statue, I 
 thought it would be a favorable oppor- 
 tunity." 
 
 Lanthony inwardly anathematized 
 his friend, as he backed through the 
 door, bucket in hand, she following
 
 68 ^be fflaw in tbe /fcarble. 
 
 him. He put it down in the corner, and 
 then, as she stretched out her hand, 
 daintily gloved in pearl-grey, to him, 
 he put his hastily behind his back with 
 such a rueful expression that she burst 
 into a clear, ringing laugh. 
 
 " Ours is a dirty trade, madame," he 
 said, also laughing, and holding up his 
 hands for her inspection. "And the 
 studio is horribly dirty too," he added 
 in a vexed tone, as he glanced at her 
 delicately edged skirts trailing on the 
 boards of the floor, which were dusty 
 wherever they were not muddy. A 
 sculptor's working studio is not, and 
 cannot be, a very spick and span or 
 orderly looking sort of place, but it 
 must be confessed that Lanthony's 
 would have taken the palm for un- 
 kemptness and dustiness. It was to 
 him a workshop, and nothing but a 
 workshop. 
 
 " There is dust on the dessous of 
 most things," she put in smiling, " if 
 one only knew." 
 
 " Mine is not a show-studio," he said, 
 half wishing, half fearing she would 
 go ; " there is, alas ! really nothing to 
 see." 
 
 "So much the better," she replied,
 
 Cbc jf law in tbc flBarble. 69 
 
 answering the first part of his state- 
 ment. " I have seen enough of them 
 and to spare, and can never quite get rid 
 of the impression they give me of being 
 high-class bric-h-brac shops." 
 
 She was genuinely interested for the 
 moment in an aspect of life so new to 
 her, as she moved about the room 
 looking at the sketches and models in 
 clay or plaster upon the walls and on 
 the shelves and brackets. It was a 
 curious experience in more ways than 
 one, for it was somewhat like walking 
 through a miniature museum stored 
 with effigies of oneself. Everywhere 
 she was met by reproductions of her 
 hands, her arms and shoulders, the 
 contour and pose of her head (with 
 the face left blank), or sketches in 
 black and white of various arrange- 
 ments of drapery she had worn ; and, 
 as this woman studied herself as she 
 did all else, it is to be presumed 
 she recognized them for what they 
 were. 
 
 " You must have worked very hard, 
 monsieur, if you have done all these " 
 pointing at the walls "since you 
 moved into this studio . . . Let me 
 see, nine weeks ago, was it not ? "
 
 7 be fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, surprised that she 
 should remember the date ; but she 
 had a wonderful memory, she never 
 forgot anything until it suited her to 
 do so. 
 
 " You like work ? " she queried. 
 
 " There is nothing like it," he re- 
 plied ; then correcting himself, " at 
 least, I mean, one cannot do without 
 it. You said yourself, madame, that 
 one must work to make one's life what 
 one would have it to be." 
 
 (Did he remember, she wondered in 
 passing, how and why she had said it ? 
 or was he, like all men, idealizing 
 words into the meaning he wished 
 them to have ?) 
 
 "And one's art is what makes life 
 worth living." 
 
 " You are young to think that," she 
 said, half to herself. " But where is 
 the statue Carrolin told me of?" 
 
 " Carrolin misled you, madame; 
 there is no statue." Then feeling her 
 eyes upon him, he muttered confusedly, 
 " Only a mere rough clay sketch." 
 
 "It is there, is it not?" she asked, 
 pointing with her parasol to the hud- 
 dled cloths on the modelling board. 
 " Will you not show it to me ? "
 
 tflaw in tbc Garble. 71 
 
 It was less from an amiable com- 
 pliance with her wishes than from an 
 irresistible desire to compare the copy 
 with the original, that Lanthony drew 
 the covering cloth from off the figure. 
 Madeleine was confronted with her own 
 portrait. There she sat in the chair she 
 most frequently occupied in her own 
 boudoir, and she wore the dress which 
 she had worn the night he had supped 
 with her. She looked at it silently for 
 a moment, smiling back at it ; then 
 she said, 
 
 "What do you call her? " 
 
 " ' Circe/ " he replied in the de- 
 tached tone of a man half awake, for 
 he was already wholly absorbed in 
 comparing the woman and her like- 
 ness. She stirred slightly, and he 
 called out, "Stay stay just as you 
 are for one moment," and moved 
 round to catch how the light fell on 
 the roundness of her chin. She stood 
 motionless, smiling at him ; and look- 
 ing up he saw her eyes fixed upon 
 him with a curious look half pity, half 
 amusement, and something else besides 
 which he could not define. That look 
 recalled him to his senses, and mur- 
 muring an inaudible apology he hastily
 
 72 Cbe fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 threw the cloth over the figure on the 
 stand. 
 
 " Don't you find it very difficult to 
 model from memory ? " she asked, still 
 with that look. 
 
 " Yes," he said simply ; " but it is 
 the only possible way." 
 
 " You look to exhibit this statue 
 some day when it is finished ?" 
 
 " If it is finished yes. But that 
 may be never, for there is no model 
 who can supply the points which 
 memory forgets or has never clearly 
 taken in." 
 
 "There is one, I think," she said v 
 after a moment's pause. ... " M. 
 Lanthony, shall I sit to you for your 
 ' C irce ' ? What do you say ? " 
 
 He said nothing ; he simply stared 
 at her in a dazed sort of way like a 
 man who has been half stunned by a 
 blow. He rubbed his ears as if to 
 make sure he had heard aright ; he 
 gasped as if for breath, and then he 
 made a step towards her saying, 
 "Would you? would you?" in a tone 
 of such childish entreaty, with an air 
 of such one-ideaed wishfulness, that 
 she laughed aloud. 
 
 " Yes," she replied. " When shall I
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 73 
 
 come? You had better lose no time," 
 she added mischievously. " I am a 
 very changeable person ! " 
 
 " To-morrow at eleven," he said de- 
 cisively. 
 
 "Good," she replied, holding out her 
 hand to him. 
 
 "You are sure you will come?" he 
 asked, standing quite unconsciously 
 with his back against the door. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "I do not 
 break my word." 
 
 He stood looking at her, as though 
 afraid to let her go. 
 
 " My horses will be catching cold," 
 she added. "A demain, riest-ce pas?" 
 and passing through the now open 
 door, left him. 
 
 He did not accompany her down- 
 stairs, he stood rooted to the spot 
 listening till the last echo of her foot- 
 steps had died away ; then he closed 
 the door, and sitting down, buried his 
 face in his hands. It was a strange 
 way of showing joy, yet that was per- 
 haps the happiest moment of his life.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHAT had induced her to do it? It 
 certainly was not from any idea of the 
 reclame generally so dear to her pro- 
 fession, for Madeleine Le Fagon's per- 
 sonal charms, like her talents, were in 
 need of no advertisement. Nor, prob- 
 ably, had she been impelled by a move- 
 ment of mere caprice ; for she always 
 had some reason even for her most 
 apparently irrelevant actions. It may 
 have been the worthy motive of wish- 
 ing to help forward a young artist in 
 his career. Or it may have been simply 
 a less laudable curiosity as to the man 
 and his life, his character and methods 
 of work ; for though people for the 
 most part interested her not at all, and 
 genuinely indifferent as she might be 
 to all the inner sense and deeper influ-
 
 flaw in tbe Garble. 75 
 
 ences of her own art, she could never 
 divest herself of a habit, half uncon- 
 scious and wholly professional, of 
 minutely observing every one with 
 whom she came in contact. 
 
 These considerations did not in any 
 way cloud Lanthony's serene preoccu- 
 pation ; he asked no questions, he 
 troubled himself with no possible rea- 
 sons : it was enough for him that she 
 was there, and that with her had come 
 his opportunity. But it was a puzzle 
 to the woman herself, and it has since 
 afforded food for conjecture to not a 
 few other people. 
 
 She came, true to her word, and 
 punctual to a moment, on that first 
 morning, and on many subsequent 
 days. And while Lanthony studied 
 her, she studied him with this differ- 
 ence, that while his attention was 
 wholly absorbed by form and line and 
 outward proportions, hers was occupied 
 with the man himself, and only took 
 note of his visible characteristics just 
 in so far as they served to indicate his 
 real personality. Carrolin had told 
 her he was not as other men were, and 
 each day brought to her a conviction of 
 the truth of this. She had heard a great
 
 76 Cbe Jflaw in tbe 
 
 deal of high-sounding talk about art in 
 her day, and she had known many 
 artists of almost every shade and de- 
 gree ; from the poor, struggling be- 
 ginner of scant training and doubtful 
 capacity, to the few successful great 
 men whose training had developed into 
 a science, and whose talents acted with 
 an assurance which almost amounted 
 to a mechanical certainty. But she 
 had never seen an artist like this, to 
 whom art was the sole end and aim of 
 life, and human beings but just so much 
 necessary material for the development 
 of artistic theory. 
 
 She had known many men of various 
 types and classes ; and those who had 
 been thrown into any conditions of 
 real intimacy with her had one and all 
 fallen under the undefinable spell of 
 her personal influence, and worshipped 
 her according to their nature and kind. 
 But she had never come across a man 
 like this, who through all the varied 
 detail of daily intercourse scarcely 
 seemed conscious that she was even a 
 woman, much less a beautiful woman ; 
 who regarded her simply as a collection 
 of harmonious lines which it was alike 
 his business and his pleasure to repro-
 
 fftaw in tbe Garble. 77 
 
 duce. Never since she had sat to him 
 in the studio had he sought her in any 
 other way ; now that he had the op- 
 portunity of studying her satisfactorily 
 and at leisure, he had ceased to fre- 
 quent her house, or, as he would have 
 put it, to waste his time in going to 
 see her there, or on the stage. The 
 silent indifference of this man moved 
 her strangely, and this, less from a 
 feeling of pique, than because it awak- 
 ened in her a sort of naive wonder. 
 At last she had discovered something 
 new to her ; something she had hardly 
 imagined (for in her the imaginative 
 sense was ever in abeyance) ; something 
 worth studying for its own sake alone. 
 With a sort of vague instinctive polite- 
 ness he attended to her wants, and had 
 some thought for her personal comforts 
 when she first arrived in the mornings. 
 But once at work, his concentration 
 became so impenetrable that she had 
 begun to suspect that even his scanty 
 courtesies were grudgingly gone 
 through merely as necessary prelimi- 
 naries to the day's sitting. She was a 
 good sitter, but more than once she 
 had to remind Lanthony that a human 
 model cannot remain for more than a
 
 78 tTbe JF law in tbe flbarble. 
 
 certain period in pose without fatigue. 
 On these occasions he aroused himself, 
 as it were, with a start, as he realized 
 the situation. During the sittings he 
 never spoke to her, and when she spoke 
 to him, answered either not at all or 
 with such obvious distraction as to be 
 absolutely disconcerting. And during 
 her rests he either worked on at his 
 clay as though she were not there, 
 or moved about looking at his work 
 from different points, in palpable ob- 
 livion of her presence. In the end 
 this indifference, which had at first 
 interested her, became a source of 
 half-acknowledged irritation, and she 
 found herself more than once wish- 
 ing that these sittings were at an 
 end. 
 
 " M. Lanthony," she said one day, 
 during a few minutes' rest he had ac- 
 corded her. 
 
 " Madame?" 
 
 " How many more sittings do you 
 think you will require? I am soon 
 leaving Paris, but I should be sorry to 
 do so before you have carried your 
 work far enough to be able to set me 
 free." 
 
 He thought a moment, measuring
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 79 
 
 out in his mind the time necessary to 
 complete the clay study. Then he 
 answered quite simply, 
 
 " I think in one more sitting, 
 madame, I shall so far have progressed 
 as to be able to dispense with the 
 courtesy of your presence." 
 
 Not a word of regret, not a shade of 
 personal feeling graced or softened 
 this bald statement of fact ; he had 
 been asked a question, he answered it ; 
 the sittings were over, he thanked her, 
 but did not seek to detain her; her 
 further presence indeed would be a 
 drawback rather than a boon. As he 
 spoke, Madeleine felt within her a sud- 
 den spasm of rage as she realized that 
 she, so impenetrable and immovable, 
 was at last confronted with an indiffer- 
 ence at least equal to her own ; and his 
 simple phrase was destined to alter the 
 whole future drift of Paul Lanthony's 
 life, though he never traced subsequent 
 events back to that apparently trivial 
 source. 
 
 The sitting at an end, she was put- 
 ting on her long cloak, unaided by 
 Lanthony, for he was busy adding a 
 finishing touch to the drapery he had 
 been at work upon, and by some mis-
 
 so Gbe fflaw in tbe ^Barbie. 
 
 chance she entangled one of the hooks 
 of her garment in her hair. 
 
 " M. Lanthony, will you help me ? " 
 she said ; and he, turning, saw her with a 
 movement of divine awkwardness try- 
 ing ineffectually to free herself. 
 
 He moved hastily across the room 
 and applied himself to the task; but 
 his fingers, so apt at his trade, were 
 new to this sort of work, and he only 
 made confusion worse confounded. 
 
 "Ah! gently; you hurt me!" she 
 exclaimed, as he strove to disentangle 
 the twisted dark brown threads, while 
 she looked at him smiling over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I hurt you," he repeated in a 
 muffled voice, bending his head lower 
 till he almost touched that little space 
 of golden tints which lay below the 
 growth of tangled hair. Then sud- 
 denly, he knew not how he came to do 
 it, nor why, he bent and kissed the 
 warm flesh beneath his hands. A mist 
 floated before his eyes, half blinding 
 them, and, in a lightning flash of time, 
 he saw and realized what he had never 
 seen or known before. Then, his face 
 deadly pale, still crushing the folds of 
 her cloak in his hands, he stood and
 
 " ' I-HURT-YOr,' HE REPEATED IN A MUFFLED 
 . VOICE." Page So.
 
 tlbe fflaw in tbe flfcarble. 81 
 
 faced her. No mist dimmed the clear 
 impenetrable depths of those eyes of 
 hers as she looked straight back at him, 
 a smile upon her lips. 
 
 They stood thus for a second or two 
 in silence, then gently disengaging her 
 cloak, " Well the sitting is finished, is 
 it not ? " she asked. 
 
 He opened the door for her and 
 bowed as she passed out, and listened 
 to the sound of her feet as she went 
 downstairs just as he had done every 
 day since that first dayT And she, as 
 she walked away, said to herself with 
 a little shrug, " He is only a man like 
 the rest of them." 
 
 Lanthony, as he turned back again 
 into the studio, felt that in a few short 
 moments the whole world had changed. 
 It seemed to him as though through all 
 the years of his life until now he had 
 been blind and deaf, and that by some 
 sudden and inexplicable magic his 
 eyes had been opened, and his ears un- 
 stopped. It was the old myth of 
 Pygmalion and Galatea come true 
 only reversed. 
 
 He went over to the modelling board, 
 and passing behind the clay figure pas- 
 sionately kissed its neck just at the
 
 82 abe jflaw in tbe flbarble. 
 
 place where he had kissed hers. But 
 his lips met only the cold clay where 
 before they had caressed flesh and 
 blood, and in a recoil, which was purely 
 physical, he read an allegory of the 
 heart. 
 
 Oh ! years wasted in a thankless 
 labor over dull abstractions and boot- 
 less phantasies, while the whole wide 
 world men, women, birds, beasts, and 
 all living things sang a song of love ! 
 Oh ! nights and days spent in worship 
 of inanimate beauty, while breathing, 
 sentient loveliness lived and walked in 
 ineffable sunshine beneath a boundless 
 sky! 
 
 Lanthony did not at first consider 
 the probable consequences of his mo- 
 mentary act ; he simply gave himself 
 up to his new joy of living living, 
 loving, and remembering and the 
 future troubled him not at all. It 
 was only the next day, when Made- 
 leine, for the first time, failed to keep 
 her appointment, that he realized the 
 possibility that she might never come 
 again ; and with the pang which then 
 shot through him mingled the thought 
 of what result such defection might 
 have upon his work. For art is a
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 83 
 
 jealous mistress, and habitual devotions 
 die hard. 
 
 He did not dare to seek her, and 
 spent that day, and the night which 
 followed, in mute, restless misery alter- 
 nating with aimless exultation. The 
 day after, she came. She entered the 
 studio with her accustomed imperturb- 
 able smile, and divested herself of her 
 cloak and head-gear, handing them to- 
 Lanthony just as usual, talking a little 
 the while upon indifferent subjects ; a 
 slanting ray of sunshine catching the 
 ends of her hair and powdering them 
 with gold. He did not attempt to 
 respond to her conversation ; all his 
 energies were absorbed in so control- 
 ling his feelings as to appear equally 
 unmoved. 
 
 But when she was posed and he 
 took up his tools to work, he found 
 that his hand shook, his will could not 
 guide his wandering fingers. He spoilt 
 the effect of every touch he tried to 
 make, and at last, letting the tool fall 
 from his nerveless grasp, he ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " It is no use, madame, I cannot 
 work to-day." 
 
 " It is a pity," she said, not unkindly,
 
 in tbe /Hbarble. 
 
 " for I leave Paris to-morrow for 
 several months. But I daresay you 
 will be able to fill in from memory 
 what you cannot accomplish now." 
 
 She rose and put on her cloak with- 
 out asking for his assistance, nor did 
 he proffer it. At the door she turned : 
 
 " Du courage, Monsieur Lanthony, 
 t au revoir. One of these days your 
 4 Circe ' will win the world for you ! " 
 and smiling she left him. 
 
 There are victories from which those 
 who conquer do not emerge unscathed. 
 As Madeleine Le Fagon walked down 
 to her carriage, she felt, for the first 
 time in her life, a twinge of remorse. 
 But, " Bah ! he is only a man like the 
 rest of them," she repeated ; " he will 
 forget." Yet, like though they be, 
 one man differs from every other just 
 as the myriad leaves on a tree differ 
 each from each ; and this time she had 
 chanced on that, for her, hitherto un- 
 known type, a man who does not for- 
 get. 
 
 Upstairs Lanthony sat with his face 
 buried in his hands. But it was no 
 longer a manifestation of joy Paul 
 Lanthony had begun to live.
 
 PART II.
 
 " What shadows we are ! and what shadows we 
 pursue'! "
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MONTHS passed away and the statue 
 of the "Circe" was nearly completed. 
 They had been months of absorbing 
 and ceaseless labor to Lanthony, who 
 lived for nothing but to bring his work 
 to a successful conclusion. True, for 
 the first few days after Madeleine's last 
 visit to the studio he had lapsed into a 
 strange, dreamy idleness which was en- 
 tirely new to him, and later into an irri- 
 tated and abortive restlessness. 
 
 But once fairly started he worked 
 with an energy which thenceforward 
 never flagged, and with a patience which 
 admitted no discouragement. He re- 
 mained in Paris all through the heat of 
 the summer and autumn, and when with 
 the return of winter his comrades and 
 acquaintances were once more to be seen
 
 88 be ff law in tbe /fcarble. 
 
 in their accustomed haunts, he still 
 worked on as though he were alone in 
 a city of the dead. 
 
 The younger men who knew him saw 
 nothing unusual in this he always had 
 been according to them a crabbed re- 
 cluse whose room was any day better 
 than his company ; but Plon and Carro- 
 lin who, like every one else, were denied 
 admittance to his studio, continued to 
 believe in him, and were content to bide 
 their time. 
 
 His motive for this fury of work was 
 as alien from his previous theory of life 
 as was his subject from his hitherto 
 conceived ideals. Up to now the sen- 
 timent, no less than the form of Greek 
 art, had been for him the one true gos- 
 pel a creed which had necessarily lim- 
 ited alike his choice of subjects and his 
 method of treatment. Now, however, 
 he had chosen a subject which could be 
 treated in no conventional spirit, and 
 he had given himself a free hand in 
 the literalness of his newly-essayed 
 realism. 
 
 He had been equally sincere in his 
 belief that the accomplishment of good 
 work was in itself a sufficient reason for 
 the labor it demanded, and he had
 
 jf law in tbe Garble. 89 
 
 coveted success just in so far as 
 it evidenced a progressive mastery 
 over his art. But now all this was 
 changed. 
 
 At first, indeed, the spirit of his old 
 principle of doing good work for its own 
 sake alone continued to rule him ; for 
 a habit of conscience, like any other, 
 becomes in course of time more than 
 half instinctive. But soon the new in- 
 fluences which had broken into his life 
 asserted themselves, and he found him- 
 self for the first time engaged in a min- 
 iature war of mixed motives. And 
 after a certain struggle the later sove- 
 reignty declared its ascendency and 
 won the day. 
 
 He worked now to produce what was 
 beautiful only that it might command 
 success, and he desired success solely 
 that it might win for him the good 
 graces and approval of a single indi- 
 vidual. It was a slender hope, he told 
 himself, a mere outside chance, but it 
 was a chance which meant life or death 
 to him. 
 
 As he progressed with the statue, 
 through sundry ups and downs, and 
 varying degrees of hope and despair, 
 his sheer determination to succeed in
 
 go Cbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 his work crystalized into a belief 
 that he should do so ; while his pas- 
 sionate desire for the one object of 
 such success mercifully blinded his 
 eyes to the improbability of his ever 
 attaining it. 
 
 In addition to the fluctuating exhil- 
 aration and depression, inseparable 
 from such a state of mind, he had been 
 confronted with certain unexpected 
 technical difficulties and discourage- 
 ments. In this instance he, for obvious 
 reasons, determined to follow in the 
 footsteps of those masters of past ages 
 who allowed no hand but their own to 
 touch their marble. Nowadays this 
 practice does not obtain ; but our artist 
 carried out his intention from the bitter 
 beginning, and expended no little time 
 and energy in the roughing and block- 
 ing out which sculptors usually com- 
 mit to humbler craftsmen. All went 
 well, and his statue day by day ad- 
 vanced rapidly towards accomplished 
 intention ;but one morning, when work- 
 ing on the right arm, he came upon a 
 flaw. The thing which was to win the 
 world, and through it the woman he 
 loved, must needs be absolutely flaw- 
 Jess. So, though the defect was one
 
 jflaw tn tbe /Ifcarble. 91 
 
 which could have been dissimulated or 
 obliterated by certain well-known 
 " tricks of the trade," he would have 
 none of it, and breaking up with his 
 own hands the labor of months, he 
 began all over again upon a fresh 
 block. 
 
 The snows of winter melted away 
 into spring ; a spring so coy and unde- 
 fined that it seemed rather to be a pause 
 'twixt seasons than a fresh stage of the 
 year. 
 
 Madeleine Le Fagon had, he knew, 
 returned to Paris months ago, yet he 
 did not seek to see her, did not even 
 desire to see her as yet. If it had 
 been open to him at once to test his 
 fate, he would have shrunk before the 
 ordeal ; but as people dislike making 
 confession of cowardice, even to them- 
 selves, he inwardly stated the case in 
 more ambiguous terms. Until the 
 " Circe " was absolutely ready to face 
 the world's inspection and criticism, he 
 would ask no question, the answer to 
 which might turn faltering hope into 
 the blank certainty of despair. He 
 would give himself and his work every 
 chance, and avail himself of every 
 moment of preparation.
 
 92 Gbe fflaw in tbe flbarbte. 
 
 Madeleine had made equally little 
 effort to see him. She was reaping her 
 usual harvest of plaudits from the 
 crowd, and gaining a growing apprecia- 
 tion from the cultured few ; and her 
 life seemed even more than ever to be 
 a sort of triumphal progress through 
 her world. People who saw her act 
 that season said that she even surpassed 
 herself, though no one could exactly 
 say why. She had seemed before to 
 possess every conceivable excellence in 
 her art ; yet now they said there was a 
 something added, an indefinable 
 nuance, an imperceptible over-touch, a 
 quite inexpressible quality which was 
 only to be felt, not described. Per- 
 haps she too had, half unconsciously, 
 learned some further lesson in that 
 school wherein the wisest of us con- 
 tinue scholars until we die. 
 
 Fate, whose feet often tarry so pain- 
 fully, sometimes takes an erratic pleas- 
 ure in quickening its course. One 
 afternoon Lanthony, feeling fagged, 
 and suffering moreover from one of 
 those headaches which had of late 
 threatened to become intolerable, de- 
 cided to give himself a few hours' holi- 
 day. He took one of the busses
 
 Cbe Jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 93 
 
 which, starting from the little square 
 at the corner of the street, make their 
 heavily-laden way two or three times a 
 day to a certain point on the outskirts 
 of the Bois de Boulogne. He had 
 been wandering for several hours in 
 the twisty foot-paths, among the trees 
 and green grass to which he had been 
 for months a stranger, and had just 
 turned into one of the carriage roads 
 on his homeward way. He was about 
 to cross the road, but stood waiting a 
 moment till a carriage which was com- 
 ing rapidly along should have passed 
 by. It was a victoria drawn by a 
 high-stepping perfectly matched pair 
 of blacks, and in it was seated a woman 
 who, despite the season, was closely 
 muffled in furs. She turned her head 
 idly towards him as she passed, and 
 then suddenly ordered her coachman 
 to stop. Lanthony awkwardly lifted 
 his hat as she beckoned to him. 
 
 "Ah! M. Lanthony," she said, in 
 the low, clear tones which those who 
 knew and loved them, for want of a 
 better description, called " sa voix 
 d'or," " what ages since we met ! And 
 the ' Circe,' how does she get on ? " 
 
 His reply amounted to little better
 
 94 Cbe fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 than a confused mumble, and she went 
 on, 
 
 " I am on my way down to St. Cloud. 
 I have a little villa close by there in 
 which I now spend nearly all the time 
 that Paris doesn't steal from me. It is 
 rather early in the year for it just yet, 
 and my friends think me mad, I be- 
 lieve, to bury myself in what they are 
 pleased to call ' the country.' It isn't 
 the country ; but it's the next best 
 thing, and the next best thing is not 
 to be despised in this world ! I love 
 the quiet and my garden. A propos, I 
 should like to show you my garden. 
 If you have nothing better to do, will 
 you come down there with me now ? 
 I am ' off duty ' to-night." 
 
 And a moment later Lanthony found 
 himself seated by her side, being whirled 
 along as fast as horses could carry 
 them to the garden at St. Cloud. He 
 did not seek to discover why it seemed 
 to him as though all the past and all 
 the future were merged in this one ador- 
 able and fleeting moment of the present. 
 Being a Frenchman, I suppose he 
 thought in French ; yet a very fair 
 translation of his thoughts might be 
 given by the lines
 
 Cbe fftaw in tbe /Barbie. 95 
 
 " I and my mistress, side by side, 
 Shall be together, breathe and ride 
 So one day more I am deified. 
 Who knows but the world may end to-night ? " 
 
 Madeleine showed Lanthony the 
 beauties of her garden with a graceful 
 pride which was infinitely charming; 
 then, as he turned to go, said, 
 
 "As you have come so far out of 
 the world, why not stay and keep me 
 company at dinner? Always suppos- 
 ing, that is, that you have no better 
 engagement ? " 
 
 He was about to frame some suit- 
 able form of excuse on the ground of 
 his costume, but she seemed to re- 
 gard the matter as already settled, for 
 she called through the open window 
 of the dining-room to a servant who 
 was arranging some flowers on a side- 
 table, and bade him conduct M. Lan- 
 thony to a dressing-room on the 
 ground-floor. 
 
 " We shall dine in half an hour," 
 she added. " I am going up to dress : 
 you will make yourself as comfortable 
 as may be, and then I will rejoin you 
 here." 
 
 Lanthony did as she bade him, and 
 shortly after wandered out again into
 
 96 be Jflaw In tbe fl&arble. 
 
 the garden to wait her coming. He 
 sat down on a bench underneath a 
 wide-spreading paulownia-tree, from 
 the lower branches of which hung the 
 close white bunches of a climbing 
 banksia rose. It was a lovely evening, 
 and in the late twilight there was all 
 about him a sense of shadowy green- 
 ness, and the mingled fragrance of a 
 hundred familar flowers. 
 
 A little star shimmered shyly in the 
 pearly grey overhead, a sleepy twitter 
 or two told of the presence of birds. 
 So Lanthony dreamed on in his en- 
 chanted garden. The law of the world 
 is forgetfulness and change, and it is 
 difficult to account for the principle of 
 unconscious selection which makes the 
 unimportant setting of certain events 
 for ever unforgettable, even when the 
 event itself has become blurred by the 
 mists of time. The face of our van- 
 ished friend is in slow course blotted 
 from our mind's beholding, the voice 
 which once made the music of the 
 world is a fleeting echo which, even 
 as we strain our ears to catch it, 
 slides into silence; but the impres- 
 sions of certain scenes, half unheeded 
 at the time, those trees, those fields,
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 97 
 
 the sound of that babbling brook, the 
 scents of that far-off garden, or that 
 whiff of the hay on the passing breeze, 
 are for ever ours ; and it is often 
 through them that we vaguely recall 
 the pale images of those whom we 
 once thought we could never forget. 
 Lanthony in his space of life forgot 
 many things, but to his dying day that 
 garden at St. Cloud seemed to have 
 printed itself indelibly upon the vision 
 of his mind. 
 
 He was aroused from his dream by 
 a cold blunt nose thrust confidingly 
 into his hand, and the thud of a huge 
 grey paw upon his knee. It was 
 Lanoe, Madeleine's great Danish boar- 
 hound, and he was followed by his 
 mistress. 
 
 Never had Lanthony seen her look 
 so lovely as to-night. Was it by 
 chance, or by intention, that she wore 
 the same dress in which she had sat to 
 him for his " Circe " ? Her only adorn- 
 ment was a loose bunch of white tea- 
 roses fastened into the folds of her 
 dress. Le Fagon's jewels were re- 
 nowned throughout Paris, but she 
 never wore them except upon the 
 stage. She made, however, an excep-
 
 3flaw in tbe flbarble. 
 
 tion in favor of rings she liked look- 
 ing at the beautiful gems flashing 
 upon her fingers, she said. Lanthony 
 had once expounded his theory on the 
 subject to her, which was that" a 
 woman with ugly hands should not 
 draw attention to them by placing 
 jewels upon them ; that a woman with 
 tolerable hands was at liberty to do as 
 she pleased, but that a woman who 
 had the rare gift of beautiful hands 
 committed a crime in taste by allow- 
 ing any adornment to interfere with 
 their outline. Madeleine's hands were 
 beautiful, and to-night she wore no 
 rings. 
 
 It cannot be said that the dinner 
 which followed was a success. Every- 
 thing about it was perfect of its kind, 
 for Madeleine was an adept in keeping 
 the balance between luxury and re- 
 finement. But the very perfection of 
 everything was a source of irritation 
 to Lanthony, and seemed to widen 
 the gulf, which lay but half bridged 
 over, between his hostess and himself. 
 To a man of his simple habits, whose 
 life had been more or less of a strug- 
 gle, these evidences of luxurious and 
 easeful order, which were but the
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 99 
 
 habitual environment of Madeleine's 
 existence, seemed to raise a barrier 
 between them which was none the less 
 impenetrable because of its soft in- 
 tangibility. 
 
 No such reflections troubled her 
 peace of mind ; she noticed that her 
 guest seemed ill at ease, and wondered 
 vaguely what ailed him. But she cov- 
 ered up his taciturnity with a flow of 
 low-toned sparkling talk which in the 
 end attained its purpose and caused 
 him to forget his gloomy comparisons. 
 It was once said of Le Fagon that, 
 if she chose, she could carry on so bril- 
 liant a conversation with a stone wall 
 as to wake it into answering her. And 
 Lanthony was no stone wall. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the essential 
 differences between the two were other 
 than Lanthony apprehended. He had 
 the advantage of her both in birth and 
 early associations, for her origin was 
 of the most obscure, and her educa- 
 tion had been limited to the monoto- 
 nous drudgery'which preceded her debut 
 on the stage. Yet by a miracle of intu- 
 ition this woman, born, so to speak, 
 in the gutter, had insensibly acquired a 
 familiarity with the suitabilities and
 
 ioo ftbe jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 graces of life, and a degree of power to 
 use them, which to men comes only 
 through heredity or tradition. 
 
 Dinner over, they passed through 
 the adjoining sitting-room into a large 
 conservatory beyond. It was filled 
 with a strange fragrance and robust 
 lavishness of exotic verdure ; a foun- 
 tain in the centre plashed softly into 
 its shallow oval basin of white marble, 
 and the little pool of water below was 
 starred with the pink and blue blossoms 
 of the Japanese lotus, and reflected the 
 lights enclosed in iridescent globes 
 half hidden in the leaves and tendrils 
 overhead. A servant brought coffee 
 and cigarettes, which he placed on a 
 wicker table near his mistress. She in- 
 vited Lanthony to help himself, and 
 settled herself in a low rocking-chair 
 piled with huge loose cushions of yel- 
 low silk. What a picture she made 
 with her proud head thrown out against 
 that silken background, and every- 
 where beyond and around her a world 
 of great glistening leaves and delicate 
 blossoms ! 
 
 She sat in a suave abandonment of 
 repose, the tip of one foot poised on 
 the ground to give the swinging mo-
 
 3be ff law in tbe /fcarblc. 101 
 
 tion, her lithe fingers idly toying with 
 the silky ears of the great hound which 
 kept watch beside her. She smiled 
 back with a sort of indulgent tender- 
 ness at the faithful animal's worship- 
 ping gaze, wholly unconscious of 
 another pair of eyes which watched 
 her with no less faith and love, but 
 with something else besides shining 
 from out their depths. 
 
 Finding the silence at length a trifle 
 oppressive, she said, 
 
 " This is my favorite sitting-room, 
 do you know. When I cannot be out 
 of doors I spend most of my time 
 here." 
 
 But Lanthony was too much pre- 
 occupied to reply until a direct ques- 
 tion aroused him. 
 
 " Have you heard about Rose ? My 
 cousin, you know, that you met once 
 or twice at my house in Paris ? " 
 
 " No, madame. I lead a very her- 
 mit-like existence nowadays and hear 
 but little news." 
 
 " Well, she has done very well in 
 these last examinations at the Conser- 
 vatoire. She won the silver medal 
 as executant and received also an hon- 
 orable mention for composition. She
 
 fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 is as glad and proud as can be poor 
 Rose ! " 
 
 " I am very pleased to hear of her 
 success ; but why then, poor Rose ? " 
 
 " Oh ! why not ? " she answered, 
 with that little shrug which all who 
 knew her knew so well ; but in a grave 
 tone which few were familiar with : 
 " She stands on the threshold with life 
 all before her, she expects so much of 
 it and . . . she does not know poor 
 Rose ! " 
 
 He wondered what hidden remem- 
 brance suggested her words and the 
 tone in which they were spoken. But 
 he said, 
 
 " Still, she is, as you say, young and 
 successful neither of them reasons 
 for pity." 
 
 " She is young now, yes, but that 
 is lost with every day we live, and 
 as for success well, I think I have 
 told you how I rate success ; one 
 values it only for what it brings one." 
 
 "Yes," he repeated in a low voice, 
 speaking as though to himself, but fix- 
 ing his eyes earnestly on hers, " one 
 values it only for what it brings one." 
 
 Perhaps she in her turn was surprised 
 at his speech and the manner of it, for
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 103 
 
 she averted her eyes from his ques- 
 tioning gaze and said with a curious 
 smile, 
 
 "And against that one has to set 
 what it costs one." 
 
 " What does it cost one ? " he asked 
 in a muffled, eager voice. 
 
 " Ah ! M. Lanthony," she replied 
 with a little laugh, " some questions 
 need no answer, and the answer to 
 yours every one must find out for him- 
 self." Then abruptly changing the 
 subject, she said : " You are looking 
 fagged and ill; I expect you have 
 been working too hard. Why don't 
 you take a holiday ? You haven't the 
 time ? Oh ! but yes, for the sort of 
 holiday I mean, you have. There is a 
 very beautiful world, do you know, 
 within easy reach of Paris, though the 
 people whose world lies all between the 
 boulevards and the Rond Point know 
 nothing about it. There are charming 
 bits of country at only an hour's dis- 
 tance, and the river what do you 
 want better than that ? Not the river 
 where they have canoe clubs, and re- 
 gattas and noisy fetes, but the real 
 river up beyond. I live in the town, 
 and by the town, but I am at heart a
 
 104 be Jflaw In tbe flbatble, 
 
 regular country-mouse. When I have 
 time to spare, nothing pleases me bet- 
 ter than to go off for a day's rest 
 among the trees and fields, or on my 
 beloved river." 
 
 A quiver of jealousy shot through 
 Lanthony, as he listened and won- 
 dered who was the favored mortal who 
 accompanied her on such occasions 
 which was perhaps what led to his say- 
 ing, 
 
 " I should think it must be delight- 
 ful with congenial companions. But I 
 have very few friends, and the idea of 
 a solitary pilgrimage to country parts 
 does not smile to me." 
 
 " No ? " she queried. " To me, who 
 must perforce live so much of my time 
 in a crowd, there is great charm in 
 solitude. The place I oftenest go to," 
 she went on, " is such a solitary little 
 spot, so still and aloof that, once there, 
 one might fancy oneself the only in- 
 habitant of a wide green world. It is 
 called Pont-aux-Bles. Have you ever 
 heard of it? No? Then I will tell 
 you. One goes from the station here 
 early in the morning. It takes some- 
 thing over an hour to get there ; then 
 one passes through a wicket in the
 
 Jf law in tbe dfcarble. 105 
 
 fence and across a couple of fields, 
 down to a little wood by the water's 
 edge there are violets and primroses 
 there now, a little later on bluebells. 
 There is a tumble-down boat-house 
 which belongs to a funny old man with 
 one eye and a gruff voice, who fishes 
 all the week though I don't believe 
 he ever catches anything and on Sun- 
 days lets out his boat to any stray 
 eccentric who, like myself, has a mania 
 for fresh air and quiet. He and I are 
 great friends, and he is generally my 
 cavalier on such occasions. He has 
 shown me such quaint and charming 
 nooks on the back-waters of the upper 
 stream. I envy him more than almost 
 any one I know, with his old boat, and 
 his tumble-down cottage on the banks 
 of the river. The only thing he has to 
 complain of is having but one eye in- 
 stead of two to look at all the lovely 
 world about him." 
 
 Lanthony's face had regained its 
 serenity while she spoke, and he list- 
 ened to her description of Pont-aux- 
 B16s with much the same entranced 
 absorption as a child bestows on a 
 beautiful fairy tale and such, indeed, 
 it somehow seemed to him to be a
 
 io6 Cbe ff law in tbe Garble, 
 
 witching romance of some land too fair 
 for human habitation, told by a sor- 
 ceress who stole all men's hearts, 
 whether they would or no. 
 
 She smiled amusedly at his eager at- 
 tention ; this man interested her by 
 his naive power of concentration in 
 small things as well as in great. 
 
 " As you seem but little disposed for 
 solitary exploration, I think I must 
 myself show you this corner of my 
 kingdom. You could come to St. 
 Cloud by the train which passes at 
 nine, and we could go together to 
 Pont-aux-Bls. We would take our 
 dejeuner and picnic in a little nook I 
 know of, and hire old Charon's boat (I 
 always call him Charon) and row about 
 until we got tired of each other and 
 everything else. What do you say ? " 
 
 Lanthony sat there wondering 
 whether he was awake or asleep. It 
 was no marvel that, while his whole 
 soul cried a joyful assent, his tongue 
 was silent, for it is not every day that 
 it is given to men to walk for a space 
 in the fields of the paradise of their 
 hearts' desire. 
 
 " Well, what do you say ? " she re- 
 iterated, smiling.
 
 Cbc fflaw in tbe rtbarblc. 107 
 
 " You said just now, madame, that 
 some questions need no answer," he 
 replied. 
 
 She rose with a little laugh and 
 said, 
 
 " Nothing remains then but to fix a 
 day when we are both free. Sunday is 
 the day I generally choose for my ex- 
 cursions in the country, principally 
 because Paris is so detestable on that 
 day. But next Sunday I am tied, for 
 I play in the evening for Marie Ley- 
 der's benefit. I can't go back on my 
 word, or I would, for I like the Sunday 
 night audiences even less than the 
 others. However, for us, perhaps, it 
 is all the better; Pont-aux-Bles will 
 still be there a week later, and so, with 
 luck, shall we, and the trees will be 
 greener and the bluebells may be out 
 by then who knows ? " 
 
 A servant in answer to her summons 
 appeared with Lanthony's overcoat 
 and helped him on with it. Madeleine, 
 who was standing near, bent her head 
 over a plant of sweet-scented geranium 
 which was growing out of a huge por- 
 celain vase at her side ; and as she 
 turned to bid him good-night, she 
 broke off a sprig of the fragrant
 
 io8 be fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 leaves and held it out to him with a 
 smile. 
 
 Lanthony elected to walk back to 
 Paris that night in preference to any 
 speedier mode of transit. And as he 
 made his way homeward under the 
 starlit sky, with the green freshness of 
 the spring night all about him, his 
 questionings and misgivings as to the 
 future were once more overborne by 
 the tide of joy which surged through 
 the present, the blessed, beloved pres- 
 ent that was all his own. In the few 
 short hours which had passed since he 
 had walked this road before, a new 
 world had been borri, and he was the 
 king thereof.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE came that Sunday from Paris by 
 a train which passed St. Cloud about 
 nine, as she had bidden him, and found 
 her waiting as the train steamed into 
 the station. He sprang out of his 
 compartment, and her servant placed 
 in it a large picnic basket and some 
 light rugs, and helped his mistress to 
 establish herself in comfort. Lanthony 
 re-entered the carriage, the whistle 
 sounded, and they glided slowly into 
 the ppen country. Lanthony sat 
 silent. To him it seemed, steam- 
 whistles and rattling wheels and rail- 
 way tickets to the contrary, that he 
 had started on a journey to heaven, 
 and though he told himself he should 
 never reach that paradise of his, yet 
 the way thither was smooth.
 
 no Cbe fftaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 " We are going to be very happy 
 to-day," she said to him joyously. 
 " We will forget everything we don't 
 want to remember, and remember 
 everything we don't want to forget, 
 and enjoy this lovely day as it de- 
 serves to be enjoyed." She was look- 
 ing out of the window, not at him, as 
 she spoke, watching the flower-span- 
 gled fields, and the young trees burst- 
 ing into leaf, a smile upon her lips ; 
 and he sat and watched her. 
 
 The train pulled up with a jerk, 
 which almost threw their heads to- 
 gether, at a little flag-station, and ris- 
 ing quickly she said, 
 
 " It is here we get out." 
 
 A solitary porter hurrying from his 
 breakfast under the lee of the signal- 
 box hastened to seize upon their 
 things, and at a word from Madeleine, 
 nodded and grunted with his mouth 
 full, and led the way towards the white 
 wicket in the platform fence. 
 
 Our holiday-makers were a comely 
 pair, and an old countryman looking 
 at them from a carriage window, began 
 to sing 
 
 " Jeannot et Jeannette 
 Un beau jour de printemps . . ."
 
 fflaw in tbe /Barbie, m 
 
 in a high, cracked, old voice, some 
 misty recollection of his own long- 
 vanished youth shining in his faded 
 eyes. 
 
 They followed a twisty little path 
 which led them across a couple of fields 
 to a turnstile, and thence through the 
 wood to the water's edge. The night's 
 dew lay heavy on the grass under- 
 neath the trees where the pale spring 
 sunshine had not yet kissed it away, 
 and further off in a bend of the sloping 
 ground was a big patch of bluebells 
 that looked like a bit of sky which, 
 having visited the earth by mistake, 
 found it so good a place that there it 
 stayed. The boat was in readiness, 
 and the rickety boat-house and its soli- 
 tary wry-faced, one-eyed guardian and 
 his two dogs were all just "as she had 
 described them. 
 
 She was evidently a favorite with 
 " Charon," for he twisted his face into 
 a grotesque caricature of a smile, and 
 tried to look as kindly out of his one 
 eye as most men can with two. As 
 the boat glided away down stream, he 
 relighted his big pipe with the porce- 
 lain bowl on which was painted a 
 speaking, though florid, likeness of the
 
 fflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 great Napoleon, and said musingly, 
 shaking his head the while, 
 
 " What a many times I've seen her 
 here, and never twice with the same ! '\ 
 
 He spoke to himself, but the porter, 
 who loitered near, overheard him, and 
 said with a snigger, 
 
 " She's always got a sweetheart in 
 tow, eh, Pere Ambroise ? " 
 
 " You're a fool, Joseph," retorted the 
 other with an air of offended dignity ; 
 "if you must know everything, she 
 comes here mostly just with her maid, 
 Mamzelle Zelie, and sometimes with a 
 young lady called Mamzelle Rose, and 
 as fresh as her name. And as it is I," 
 tapping his breast, " that row them 
 most times, I suppose I know what I'm 
 talking about." 
 
 Lanthony pulled out into mid- 
 stream, and then let the boat drift, 
 merely keeping her head straight by 
 an occasional stroke of the oars. It 
 was, as Madeleine had said, a lovely 
 day, with that peculiar indefinable 
 attraction which belongs to early 
 spring and is, as it were, a forecast of 
 the fuller beauty of the later year. 
 The buoyancy of spring which forces 
 the bursting buds into leaf, and opens
 
 Jflaw in tbc flfcarble. 113 
 
 the eyes of a thousand sleeping flowers, 
 is inseparably associated with the aim- 
 less gaiety of heart which is accounted 
 the crowning privilege of youth. But, 
 as a matter of fact, it often affects the 
 young with an incongruous melan- 
 choly ; and the fever and strain of 
 overwork in which he had been living 
 for months had induced in Lanthony 
 precisely that state of body which 
 lends itself to profound depression of 
 mind. 
 
 Yet nothing could have been fairer 
 in its way than the scene on which his 
 eyes rested. A faint bluish haze hung 
 over the fields and masses of woodland 
 against the horizon, the low-lying mid- 
 dle distances were fused into a shimmer 
 of delicate opalescent tints, while 
 nearer at hand the magic of the sun- 
 light brought out the smallest details 
 with microscopic distinctness. It lit 
 up, here the brown sodden drifts of 
 fallen leaves, there the dazzling golden 
 green of fresh young growth ; it trans- 
 formed the dewdrops hanging from the 
 tiny twigs into flashing gems, and 
 turned the tall spikes of the rushes into 
 glinting spears. The banks just at 
 this point were bordered with a fringe
 
 H4 *n>e 3flaw in tbe 
 
 of pollard willows, their bare rods, as 
 yet rebellious to the touch of spring, 
 standing up from the old grey trunks 
 clear and straight against the sky, slim 
 wands of yellow, red, and purple, which 
 the moving sheet of the fast-flowing 
 stream below reflected in a rippling 
 stain of red and gold. 
 
 " What fools people are who can 
 really do as they like, and have not to 
 work for their living like you and me 
 not to live always in the country ! " 
 exclaimed Madeleine, looking around 
 her ; and she was quite sincere in what 
 she said, for while the best things in 
 art failed to touch her, she had a gen- 
 uine appreciation of the beauties of 
 nature. 
 
 Lanthony was surprised at her 
 emphasis, for she was not given to en- 
 thusiasm ; but what so delighted her 
 had, apparently, ceased to affect him, 
 for he answered, 
 
 " One likes to live amongst one's 
 kind, I suppose." 
 
 " One's kind ? " she repeated, " I 
 don't see it. But where one has 
 to spend half one's life observing, 
 and the rest amusing them, I think 
 ' one's kind,' as you call them, cease
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbc Garble. 115 
 
 to possess any sort of attraction for 
 one." 
 
 " One may not care about them in 
 the mass," he replied " and yet yet, 
 individuals may make up so much of 
 one's life that to be near them becomes 
 a necessity. Even if one does not, 
 cannot see them very often," he went 
 on timidly, " even if one can form no 
 real part of their life, to breathe the 
 same air, to walk the same streets, to 
 catch a glimpse of them in passing, is 
 what one lives for." 
 
 He spoke rather in exculpation of 
 himself to himself than with any view of 
 impressing her. 
 
 She looked at him as he sat facing 
 her, his eyes dreamily fixed upon the 
 distant lines of the landscape, and she 
 pondered on the complete change 
 which had been wrought in him. It 
 was no surprise to her, for at her final 
 sitting she had seen for herself that 
 Lanthony's awakening from his pro- 
 longed indifference was likely to cost 
 him dear. The episode, though ex- 
 ceptional in her experience, had left 
 her unmoved ; but she now felt a 
 curiosity, which was purely intellec- 
 tual, regarding the progress of this
 
 jflaw in tbe flbarble, 
 
 man's transformation, and with he* 
 passion for analysis she determined to 
 satisfy it. 
 
 They were nearing a little shaded 
 nook to which she had directed him as 
 the place where they were to land for 
 their al fresco repast. He rowed the 
 boat alongside, and made it fast while 
 she busied herself in unpacking the 
 basket. 
 
 After they had breakfasted they sat 
 on there awhile, the sunlight flickering 
 through the tangle of boughs and new- 
 born leaves overhead. She had thrown 
 aside her hat, and the rays gleaming on 
 the shining surface of her hair cast a 
 glow over the warm pallor of her face. 
 Her eyes were fixed musingly upon an 
 old ragged wych-elm whose gnarled 
 boughs, bedecked with the powdery 
 green of its close-clinging blossoms, 
 were touched into momentary youth 
 and beauty. Suddenly she turned to 
 him, with a soft light in her lovely eyes, 
 the like of which he had never seen be- 
 fore, and said in those slow, sweet tones 
 he knew so well. 
 
 " Could one not persuade the the 
 individual who, as you say, makes up 
 so much of one's life, to leave the noise
 
 'WITH PALE FACE AND GLOWING EYES HE SEEMED TO 
 PLEAD AN UNEXPRESSED CAUSE." Page ///.
 
 Cbe jflaw in tbe Garble. 117 
 
 and glare of the town, and to live with 
 one in the country? " 
 
 All the blood seemed drawn back 
 from his heart so as to leave it still, 
 and then it returned with a rush which 
 was almost suffocating. He did not 
 answer her question directly, but bend- 
 ing forward with pale face and glowing 
 eyes he seemed to plead an unexpressed 
 cause. 
 
 "Ah! what a life! Think of it- 
 day after day growing into years, and 
 they two alone together in a world of 
 their own." 
 
 " And art ? " she queried, in the same 
 words he had used to her the first night 
 they had met. 
 
 " There would be no room for art in 
 such a world as that no room, no need 
 for it. What need could such as those 
 two have of symbols? Art, after all, 
 is but aspiration there can be no place 
 for art in heaven." 
 
 She apparently had but slender faith 
 in the sufficing delights of a premature 
 Paradise, for she rejoined : 
 
 " Art then would go to the wall in 
 this ideal solitude ft deux, and, it seems 
 to me, individuality would be annihil- 
 ated."
 
 us abe Jflaw in tbe flbarble. 
 
 " On the contrary, it would be 
 strengthened by union. Each nature 
 would be so merged in the other as to 
 be but one one heart, one brain, one 
 love, one life." 
 
 It occurred to her that brain would 
 enter very little into the matter, and 
 that no heart could stand the strain of 
 such implacable concentration, but she 
 did not say so in so many words. 
 
 " It is a beautiful dream, mon ami" 
 she said at length, " but, like most 
 dreams, it would not stand the test of 
 daylight. Were it possible for two peo- 
 ple to live exactly as you describe 
 and some have tried it, I believe it 
 would last them just until the man got 
 restless, and the woman got bored. It 
 is their nature to, you know, and ' 
 
 " I am not speaking," he broke in, 
 " of a vain caprice, or a light love, but 
 of something far different which per- 
 haps," he added bitterly, " you cannot 
 understand." 
 
 " A great and lasting passion ? I 
 was about to say, when you interrupted 
 me, that those two you speak of, were 
 they rash enough to try your experi- 
 ment, would in a measurable time re- 
 turn to the world they had left, with a
 
 be fflaw in tbc Garble. 119 
 
 dream the less and a disillusion the 
 more. The condition of our life is 
 change, my friend, and in your ideal 
 world you ignore the law of limita- 
 tions." 
 
 Her voice had taken on a little ring 
 of hardness, her eyes had once more 
 veiled themselves, and the smile with 
 which she spoke was as imperturbable 
 and inscrutable as ever. Her curiosity 
 was satisfied ; she knew all there was 
 to know. 
 
 She rose and reseated herself in the 
 boat, and Lanthony rowed up stream, 
 staring stupidly at the rushing water. 
 And as he looked at the broad silver 
 streak of the river hurrying to the far- 
 off and hidden sea, he drew a bitter 
 parallel between it and the woman who 
 sat before him, the glow of the western 
 sky lighting up the calm beauty of her 
 face. Both were fair with an incom- 
 parable loveliness, both were borne 
 onwards, despite the obstacles which 
 confronted them, by some unseen force 
 towards an inevitable goal. The river 
 flowed on, bearing with it stray straws, 
 fallen leaves, or huge branches and 
 stems of trees cast on its breast by the 
 winter's storms; the woman, all-un-
 
 Iflaw in tbe /fcarble, 
 
 heeding, carried with her the light and 
 feeble caprice of the foolish, or the 
 living love and hearts' devotion of the 
 strong both in the swift progress of 
 their relentless course gave back but 
 broken reflections of the world about 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE last touches had been added : 
 the " Circe " was finished. She had 
 told him she would come and see it 
 some day before it left the studio, and 
 one Wednesday afternoon she came. 
 The rays of the low sun struck full 
 through the big side window, and lit 
 up both the woman and her likeness 
 the creation of his hand and brain 
 and will, and the living original whom 
 he had no power to fashion into other 
 than she was. She stood and looked 
 at the statue for some moments with- 
 out speaking, the evening light upon 
 her hair, and an inner light, as it were, 
 shining out from her ; and as she 
 looked, she felt a strange passing thrill 
 of triumph at the great thing this man
 
 Jflaw in tbe dbatble. 
 
 had achieved. At last she said, turn- 
 ing to him, 
 
 " My opinion, as you know, is worth 
 very little in such matters, but my 
 instinct is better than my judgment, 
 and I feel you have done a great thing. 
 Your Circe," she added, with a smile, in 
 the same words she had used months 
 before, " your Circe will win the world 
 for you." 
 
 " The world," he repeated bitterly, 
 " the world to me means but one 
 thing; if that is denied to me, what do 
 I care for the rest ? " 
 
 She gave a pitying little shrug and 
 smile, as she answered, 
 . " Oh ! the world has its drawbacks, 
 no doubt, its flaws, and dust-heaps, 
 and ugly places , but after all it is the 
 only one we know, and we have got to 
 live in it. We all of us, I suppose, 
 begin by crying for the moon, the one 
 thing which we have not and cannot 
 have, and which, were it but seen de 
 pres, would in no way tally with the 
 picture drawn by our imagination. 
 But after we have got over that, we 
 take and enjoy such good as the 
 world offers art, success, money." 
 
 " Art, success, money are nothing,"
 
 Jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 123 
 
 he answered in a low voice, " nothing 
 is anything save one thing." 
 
 " The moon ? " she asked with a 
 slight mocking inflection in her tone. 
 " Ah ! that, my friend, can never be 
 ours ; so the sooner we content our- 
 selves with what we have, or can 
 attain, the better for us and every 
 one else." 
 
 He asked her no further question ; 
 the time for question and answer be- 
 tween those two was for ever gone by, 
 and the hope, which had hardly been 
 more than a willful illusion, was merged 
 in the dull despair which settled like a 
 pall upon his soul. 
 
 She turned to go, and at the door 
 paused, and said, smiling, 
 
 " All success, my friend ! you will 
 see that I am a true prophetess, if but 
 a defective art-critic all success ! " 
 she repeated, " and au revoir ! " 
 
 She little thought when and how she 
 was to see him again. 
 
 Late that evening Lanthony was 
 returning, tired out, from a long, aim- 
 less walk through streets in which fad- 
 ing daylight struggled with the yellow 
 blur of the lamps, and by his own 
 doorway almost ran against a little
 
 124 be jflaw fn tbe flbarble. 
 
 stout man in a light overcoat, smoking 
 a very big cigar. 
 
 This was none other than Caillou- 
 doux, the well-known dealer in works 
 of art at the corner of the Avenue de 
 l'Opra. He had been the purchaser 
 of the " Runner," which he had resold 
 at a very tidy profit, and had extorted 
 an undertaking from Lanthony that 
 he should have the first refusal of his 
 next exhibited work. He had a cer- 
 tain knack of discovering young artists 
 of promise, and he posed as the friend 
 and patron of impecunious merit, an 
 assumption which deceived no one, 
 but which he still affected from mere 
 force of habit. He was not a very pro- 
 found or cultured critic, but he was an 
 undeniable judge of commercial value, 
 and having for many years catered for 
 the public taste in matters of art, he 
 had of late established himself as, in 
 some sense, its arbiter. He scented 
 the coming man in Lanthony, and was 
 determined to keep his hold upon 
 him. He had written several times 
 to him to request that he might be 
 allowed a private view of the proposed 
 exhibit, but his letters had remained 
 unanswered.
 
 jflaw in tbc rtbarble. 125 
 
 " Ah ! M. Lanthony," puffed the 
 little man, " I am fortunate at last to 
 catch you. I should like to speak to 
 you about our statue " (emphasizing 
 the possessive pronoun). " I wrote to 
 you about it last week and " 
 
 " Well, M. Cailloudoux," answered 
 Lanthony shortly, " what is it you 
 wish to ask about my statue ? " 
 
 " You do not forget that I have the 
 first refusal of it ?" 
 
 " No ; I remember perfectly. What 
 then ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, M. Lanthony, a 
 man likes to know what he is about, 
 and it is not unusual in such cases to 
 give a possible purchaser the advan- 
 tage of a private view." 
 
 " It is not my way," said Lanthony 
 curtly. 
 
 " Also," said the other, advancing a 
 step nearer, and smiling amiably, 
 " such a course might be very greatly 
 to your advantage, for I should be pre- 
 pared, if your work suited me, to pur- 
 chase it immediately, leaving you the 
 option of subsequent exhibition, bien 
 entendu" 
 
 " M. Cailloudoux," replied the other, 
 " you will not have long to wait before
 
 126 tlbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 your curiosity is satisfied. By paying 
 a franc you will be at liberty to see 
 my statue at the Palais de 1'Industrie, 
 always supposing that it is accepted. 
 If it is not, I conclude that you will 
 have no further interest in the matter." 
 
 " Then you are not disposed to con- 
 sider " 
 
 " No, I am not ; bon soir, M. 
 Cailloudoux." 
 
 Cailloudoux followed after him to 
 offer the services of trained packers, 
 etc., for the transport of the statue. 
 But Lanthony had, it appeared, already 
 made his own arrangements, and the 
 crest-fallen dealer went his way, curs- 
 ing all young fools who did not know 
 a good chance when they got it. 
 
 Two days afterwards the " Circe " 
 was to be sent in. The studio was 
 even dustier than usual, littered with 
 straw and bits of rope and wood and 
 carpentering tools, and workmen had 
 been busy all the morning piecing 
 together the big crate, which was being 
 got ready for the statue's reception. 
 Finally these preparations were fin- 
 ished, and she was enveloped in her 
 straw coverings, and placed in the 
 crate. The big north window through
 
 Sbe jflaw in tbc /Barbie. 127 
 
 which she was to be lowered had been 
 taken out of its frame, and a cart was 
 waiting below to receive her. A little 
 crowd of idlers stood gaping in the 
 court ; heads peered out from windows 
 on other stories, and two or three 
 small boys were periodically chased by 
 the porter's wife out of one of the 
 doors which led from the yard, only 
 to reappear the next moment through 
 another. The ropes were passed 
 underneath the crate, and " Houp ! " 
 shouted the foreman in charge, " all 
 together ! steady below ! let her go ! 
 Pouf there you are, monsieur ! " 
 
 Lanthony brushed the dust from his 
 coat, and taking his hat followed the 
 man downstairs. The cart with its 
 burden swayed and creaked out of the 
 yard, and the little boys yelled with 
 delight. " Hoik! Fhar asset Heuh ! 
 la grosse malle ! " they screamed, 
 dancing and capering about, dodging 
 the wild strokes of the porter's broom- 
 stick, and making merry at his wife's 
 objurgations. 
 
 Lanthony followed the cart on foot, 
 and as they made their slow way 
 through the crowded streets, it seemed 
 to him as though he were playing the
 
 i28 Cbe jflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 part of chief mourner at his own 
 
 funeral. 
 
 **** 
 
 Carrolin's exhibits had all been sent 
 in days before, and as he had no appre- 
 hension touching their fate in the 
 hands of the jury, he had plenty of 
 leisure to concern himself about his 
 friend. He went to the Rue de la 
 Valliere and learned from the porter 
 that the statue had been sent off early 
 that afternoon. There was no longer 
 any reason for Lanthony's wishing to 
 exclude him ; he would look him up 
 and they would arrange to dine and 
 spend the evening together. 
 
 " Monsieur had come in about half 
 an hour ago," the porter informed him ; 
 " and mon Dieu, he was as pale as a 
 ghost ! " 
 
 "What will you have?" put in his 
 wife, " to work like that day and night 
 yes, monsieur, I speak true when I 
 say that often of late he has spent the 
 whole night in the studio, and never 
 gone to bed at all and then never the 
 time taken for a decent meal ; a mouth- 
 ful here, a mouthful there, enough for 
 a sparrow. I went up a few minutes 
 ago with his coffee, but Monsieur had
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbc Garble. 129 
 
 locked himself in, and returned me no 
 reply." 
 
 Good-hearted Carrolin felt uneasy, 
 but he answered lightly as he ran up- 
 stairs, 
 
 "Set your mind at rest, Madame 
 Robert ; we will soon put all that to 
 rights." 
 
 He knocked at the studio-door, and, 
 receiving no answer, rang at the en- 
 trance of Lanthony's apartment above. 
 Then down again to the studio, with 
 a hearty thump on the closed panels. 
 
 " Let me in, Lanthony ; it's Carrolin 
 open the door, I say." 
 
 No answer, no sound of movement 
 within. A cold shiver passed over him 
 as he waited and listened ; he had often 
 been denied admittance, but never 
 refused an answer till now. He could 
 stand it no longer, he leaned the 
 whole weight of his body against the ill- 
 fitting door, and pushing with all his 
 force burst it open. 
 
 Lanthony lay on the floor amongst 
 the dust and debris of the packing, his 
 arms stretched out, his eyes closed, his 
 face, deathly pale, turned towards the 
 place where the " Circe" had been. 
 
 Carrolin stood for a second transfixed
 
 130 Sbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 with horror, then kneeling down by his 
 friend he felt for the pulse which came, 
 a wandering, flickering thread of life. 
 " God be thanked ! " he exclaimed, 
 " only a faint." He hastily summoned 
 the porter and his wife, and all three 
 made unavailing efforts to revive him. 
 
 " He can't stay here," said Carrolin 
 desperately, and he and the porter 
 carried him up and laid him on his bed. 
 
 Then leaving the other two in charge, 
 he dashed off to find Brun, a rising 
 young doctor and an old comrade of 
 his, and a friend also of Lanthony's. 
 
 When they came back together he 
 motioned Brun to the floor above and 
 turned into the empty studio to wait 
 for his verdict. 
 
 " Madame Robert is right," he said 
 to himself, " he has half killed himself 
 with overwork." Then looking round 
 at the sketches and the casts on the 
 walls, another light dawned upon him. 
 He recognized those hands and arms 
 perfectly, and the head with the face 
 left blank was no secret for him. Out 
 of that blank space shone soft, long- 
 lidded eyes, and a mouth which curved 
 itself in a mocking smile. "Ah fool, 
 fool that I was !" he murmured, twist-
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 131 
 
 ing his fingers together in a futile pas- 
 sion of remorse. "Why did I not 
 leave him to live out his life his own 
 way ! " 
 
 Brun came downstairs again, and in 
 answer to Carrolin's look of eager in- 
 quiry, said, 
 
 " It is serious very serious." 
 
 "And the cause?" 
 
 " He can never have been of robust 
 constitution ; the attack is but a natu- 
 ral consequence of the way I hear he 
 has been working, overworking, of late. 
 The immediate cause may have been 
 some shock to his nervous system. 
 You know him well are you aware of 
 any special trouble or anxiety that has 
 lately come to him ? " 
 
 Carrolin glanced involuntarily at the 
 casts on the walls ; then he answered, 
 " No," for he felt at one and the same 
 time that he knew and did not know. 
 
 " I am going to get Vieusseux to 
 come round and see him; I cannot 
 undertake -the responsibility of such a 
 case single-handed, and I shall bring a 
 trained nurse back with me that is 
 indispensable." 
 
 Carrolin, once more left alone, went 
 up to his friend's room. Brun and
 
 132 ftbe 3flaw in tbe flbarble, 
 
 Madame Robert had undressed him 
 and put him to bed. He lay still un- 
 conscious, his eyes closed, his face as 
 white as the coverings of his bed, some- 
 times deathly still, sometimes mutter- 
 ing incoherently to himself. 
 
 In about half an hour Brun returned, 
 accompanied by Vieusseux and an 
 elderly woman with a kind, wrinkled 
 face underneath her white coiffe. She 
 was dressed in the grey dress of an 
 order of nursing sisters, and the doctors 
 spoke to her as " Sceur Anne." After 
 their examination of the patient they 
 held a low-toned consultation, and 
 wrote down some directions for the 
 nurse's guidance. Then Brun crossed 
 the room to where Carrolin stood, and 
 said kindly, 
 
 " You had better come away now ; 
 there is nothing to be done at present, 
 and he will have every care and atten- 
 tion. You can come again to-morrow 
 and see how he gets on." 
 
 As they left the room together 
 Vieusseux followed them. 
 
 " Monsieur," began Carrolin, turning 
 towards him, and then found his 
 speech interrupted by a lump in his 
 throat.
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 133 
 
 " It is impossible at present to pro- 
 nounce a decided opinion, monsieur," 
 said the other, reading his thought. 
 " I have known recovery in similar 
 
 cases but it is rare." 
 
 ***** 
 
 Carrolin went the next day and every 
 day to inquire after his friend, but the 
 news he heard did not vary. Lanthony 
 alternated between delirious rambling 
 talk and long periods of coma. 
 
 The day when the lists announcing 
 the decisions of the jury were to be 
 made public, Carrolin made his way to 
 the door in the Palais de 1'Industrie 
 where they are posted up. He 
 thought he was beforehand, but the 
 list had been put up, -it appeared, a 
 few minutes earlier than usual, and he 
 found himself in a regular queue of men 
 who had sent in exhibits, and were 
 pushing and elbowing their way to the 
 front to see how their names stood. 
 Some few, their fears set at rest, or 
 their curiosity satisfied, were making a 
 slow progress outward through the 
 crowd. Amongst these was Castory 
 (Plon's present pet pupil), his face radi- 
 ant. 
 
 " Eh bien ? " asked Carrolin, forget-
 
 134 be fflaw in tbc flfcarble, 
 
 ting that his preoccupation was not 
 every one's. 
 
 "Bronze, deuxieme class e" was the 
 laconic reply meaning he had won 
 the bronze medal. 
 
 "And Lanthony? where is he?" 
 
 " Oh ! bien au-dela de $a," laughed 
 the other ; " go and see." He shouted 
 something further which Carrolin did 
 not catch as he pressed forward. 
 
 He ran his eye over the awards in 
 the second class, and the lower half of 
 the first. "Giraud, Michaudel, Retz, 
 Castory, . . . but I don't see him," he 
 exclaimed aloud, in a disappointed 
 tone. 
 
 "Who are you looking for?" asked 
 a man alongside of him, a Cossac-ite, 
 by name Bretillon. 
 
 " Lanthony, of course. Where the 
 deuce " 
 
 " You're looking too low. Look 
 there, right at the head of the show," 
 pointing with his stick. 
 
 Carrolin read, " Lanthony, Paul ; 
 statue de Circe" 
 
 Lanthony had won the gold medal ! 
 
 "En voila un qui a de la chance!" 
 said Bretillon, good-humoredly enjoy- 
 ing the other's amazement.
 
 Cbe Jftaw in tbe Garble. 135 
 
 " Jolie chance ! " muttered Carrolin, 
 as he turned to go. 
 
 He flung himself into the first cab 
 that passed, drove straight to the Rue 
 de la Valliere, and raced breathlessly 
 up the stairs. Soeur Anne smiled 
 gravely at him as she opened the door, 
 but he asked her no questions this 
 time, and only halted a moment in the 
 ante-chamber to recover himself before 
 he went on tip-toe into Lanthony's 
 room. The sick man was lying on his 
 back, his head propped up with pillows, 
 his eyes open. No gleam of recog- 
 nition came into them as he stared 
 fixedly at Carrolin, who, after some in- 
 effectual efforts, found his voice, and 
 said gently, 
 
 " Paul, old fellow, your Circe, she is 
 accepted. I have just seen the lists." 
 
 Still no sign or movement. 
 
 " Paul ! dear old Paul," he went on, in 
 choking tones, " you are at the top of the 
 list. She has won the gold medal ! " 
 
 Still that fixed vacant stare of un- 
 heeding eyes. Then Lanthony, sud- 
 denly throwing up his arms, burst into 
 a weak and piteous cry. 
 
 " Madeleine! Madeleine ! " he called, 
 and fell back unconscious.
 
 136 be fflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 Soeur Anne hurried across the room, 
 and as she arranged the helpless head 
 and tenderly drew the sheet over the 
 arms and shoulders, she said in a whis- 
 per to Carrolin, her eyes filling with 
 tears, 
 
 " He is always repeating that name. 
 Ah ! poor fellow, he must have been 
 through some great sorrow 1 Mother 
 of all mercy, have pity upon him ! "
 
 PART III.
 
 " Call no man happy till he is dead."
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was a clear, bright day at the be- 
 ginning of May. There was a suspicion 
 of dry keenness in the air, a sort of 
 after-thought of winter's chill ; the sky 
 was of a bright pale blue flecked here 
 and there with little fleecy clouds; 
 sparrows twittered and gossiped in the 
 gutters, and other birds sang in the 
 trees and shrubberies of the Tuileries 
 gardens. Fountains plashed and 
 leaped in the sunlight, and the leaves 
 on the trees of the allies and boule- 
 vards, still new to the world, danced 
 shyly in the fresh passing breeze. It 
 looked a very well-lit, white, and scru- 
 pulously clean world that morning, 
 everyone seemed busy and glad to be 
 busy, and the passers-by moved briskly 
 along.
 
 140 be tflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 The stream of cabs, carriages, and 
 vehicles of all kinds passing through 
 the Place de la Concorde to the ave- 
 nues beyond was unusually active for 
 that early hour, and it diverged 
 towards the Palais de 1'Industrie, where 
 every one seemed to be going that day, 
 the opening day of the Salon. The 
 sun, catching the spokes of wheels, 
 the shiny hats of fiacre drivers, the 
 polished leather and metal trappings of 
 harness, and the gleaming panels of 
 carriages, turned them into flashing 
 kaleidoscopic points and bars of white 
 light ; there was much stamping of im- 
 patient horses flecked with foam, 
 champing of bits, cracking of whips, 
 objurgations and shouts mingled with 
 snatches of low-toned laughing talk ; 
 every degree of shabbiness side by 
 side with dainty evidence of luxury ; 
 workers out for a holiday, and those 
 whose life was one long holiday, going 
 through just another stage in the pleas- 
 ure-seeking which is their work ; old 
 and young and middle-aged, busy men 
 and idle men, pretty women and ugly 
 women, and those between the two 
 those who had a certain beaute d* occa- 
 sion and those who never had any
 
 JFlaw in tbe Garble. 141 
 
 beauty at all. A curious medley in 
 which extremes touched, and almost 
 all classes were represented. 
 
 Many of the humbler items in this 
 crowd simply came to see the greater 
 folk in all their varying degrees of lit- 
 tleness, and remained outside while the 
 rest went into the building to stare at 
 works of art, or at each other. The 
 turnstiles rattled, the catalogue-sellers 
 did a brisk trade; and once inside, the 
 many who had got there by payment, 
 and the few who had the favor of 
 passes, disported themselves after their 
 kind. Some " in the know," with 
 marked catalogues and a certain air of 
 importance, made straight for particu- 
 lar rooms where the pictures of the 
 year were to be seen ; others, deter- 
 mined to have their money's worth, 
 even at the cost of heroic fatigue, pre- 
 pared to take everything in turn ; 
 others had evidently come there to see 
 human beings, not pictures, and roamed 
 about in search of expected acquaint- 
 ances, or sat still and watched the pass- 
 ing crowd with looks of amused 
 scrutiny. Others again, who had ap- 
 parently no definite object, drifted 
 slowly along, now and then coming to
 
 142 be fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 a standstill, where (for one fool makes 
 many) a crowd had collected before 
 some statue or picture. One of the 
 largest of these little groups surrounded 
 a statue placed about the middle of 
 the left-hand side of the inner ring of 
 exhibits in the central hall, which is, or 
 was in those days, entirely devoted to 
 sculpture. The strong white light 
 from the great glass dome struck flat 
 and full upon the marbles and bronzes 
 and terra-cottas, upon the friezes and 
 bas-reliefs and medallions, and its glare 
 was thrown back from the yellow sand 
 of the alleys, and from the moving 
 mass of color in the crowd, upon the 
 dull green of the palms, and other foli- 
 age plants disposed in lines and clumps 
 about the place. It is a somewhat try- 
 ing light either for human beings or 
 for their images, and there is a brutal 
 frankness about it which is merciless to 
 defects. 
 
 The little crowd grew larger as more 
 loiterers eddied around its outer edge ; 
 and the various people who jostled 
 their way to and from the statue ex- 
 pressed their sentiments with regard to 
 it in language distinctive of their class. 
 
 " En voilct une farceuse ! " said a
 
 Jflaw in tbe Garble. 143 
 
 provincial, as he stood open-mouthed 
 before it, " grinning like a cat at every- 
 body ! What do they call her anyhow ? 
 C. i. r. c. e. Who is she, Adolphe ? " 
 
 " Circe ? Blest if I know," answered 
 his Parisian cousin ; " but that, you 
 bet, is Mamzelle Le Fagon who plays 
 the great ladies, and the others, at the 
 Splendide." 
 
 " Pouf ! what a treat ! " exclaimed a 
 shiny-booted, much becollared dandy 
 to his companion, as they elbowed 
 their way to the front rank of specta- 
 tors. " Catch me here again ! It's 
 like her, though, de Fresnaye, her 
 smile, and all the rest of it ; and sneer- 
 ing of course as usual." 
 
 " Well, what would you have ? It's 
 her little way. But we shall see per- 
 haps some day the laugh will be 
 against her." 
 
 "Ah! but look, Virginie, that's her 
 living image," exclaimed a very respect- 
 able looking and very fat shop-keeper 
 to her daughter. " Mon Dieu ! what 
 an idea to stick those women's portraits 
 everywhere ! " 
 
 " Queer dress," answered Virginie 
 laconically. 
 
 " She's a lucky one," sighed Mile.
 
 144 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 Bibi in passing ; and Madame la Duch- 
 esse de Lavoguerie, halting for a mo- 
 ment on the fringe of the group, 
 enveloped the statue in a stare of com- 
 prehensive impertinence through her 
 double eyeglass, much as she would 
 have done to the original, and said 
 with a little shrug to Madame la 
 Vicomtesse d'Allezy, 
 
 " Circe or Le Fagon pretty much 
 the same thing, ma ckere ! " 
 
 A little apart from the crowd in 
 front of the statue stood a knot of 
 men artists these. They had all seen 
 it before on the so-called " varnishing- 
 day," and on the subsequent days 
 before the exhibition was open to the 
 public. 
 
 " He's going down-hill, that fellow," 
 said old Xavier Plon, shaking his head. 
 
 " On the contrary, mon maitre, he 
 appears to me to be going up," said 
 Martelys, " and that in a very different 
 fashion from most of us. A week ago 
 no one knew anything about Lanthony, 
 and there was little to know except that 
 he had promising talents ; and so many 
 youngsters have that ! and now " 
 
 " All the same he is going down-hill," 
 repeated Plon ; " il rente sa mere. 1 '
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbe dfcatble. 145 
 
 " Oh ! it is not of the Greeks, that," 
 said Benzon, " but all the same it is 
 superb." 
 
 " As superb as you please, but the 
 ideal is lost," insisted the other. 
 
 " Or found," said Martelys, in a half 
 aside, with a queer smile. 
 
 " Ah ! here is Carrolin," he went on. 
 " Well, and how is he?" he asked of 
 the new-comer. 
 
 Carrolin shook his head. 
 
 " Still the same. Vieusseux and 
 Brun say they can't yet tell how it 
 will end, but they give little hope." 
 
 " Poor fellow !" said Martelys. "To 
 be struck down like that just at the 
 very moment of his success ! It is 
 hard. And he does not even know of 
 it?" 
 
 " No he has been unconscious ever 
 since his first seizure. It is that which 
 troubles them the most the doctors I 
 mean this long continued stupor. 
 There he lies as though nothing would 
 ever rouse him and 
 
 He broke off suddenly, for his voice 
 shook. He loved Paul Lanthony and 
 was his best friend. 
 
 " Bah ! " growled out Plon, " it is a 
 judgment on him," and walked away
 
 146 be jflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 abruptly, blowing his nose in a huge 
 red cotton pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 The old master loved his pupil, too, 
 in his way. 
 
 "There is nothing one can do?" 
 asked Martelys, laying his hand kindly 
 on Carrolin's shoulder. 
 
 " No," he answered, " he has every- 
 thing he wants; he has a good nurse 
 and two of the best doctors in Paris 
 Brun, you know, is devoted to him, 
 and the other will do all he can. There 
 is no lack of money now. Cailloudoux 
 paid ;8oo down for her," nodding 
 towards the " Circe." 
 
 " Yes, and d d cheap, too," said 
 
 Benzon. " Trust Cailloudoux for smell- 
 ing out a good thing ! Why, he'll 
 sell it before the week is out for .1000 
 or 1500." 
 
 And the group then broke up.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BENZON was right in his prediction : 
 before the evening of the second day 
 of its exhibition the statue was resold 
 by Cailloudoux at a profit of over 50 
 per cent, to Baron Hatz, the Viennese 
 Jew banker, who was the victim of an 
 infatuation, as hopeless as it was ardent, 
 for the original. It remained, however, 
 where it was, until the close of the 
 Salon, and all Paris flocked to see the 
 " Circe " of Lanthony, while the man 
 who made her lay a-dying. 
 
 You have never seen the " Circe," 
 but I saw her many times before she 
 was lost to the world, so I will try to 
 describe her to you. The figure, which 
 was life-size, was seated on a low chair 
 of antique shape. She wore a Greek 
 dress, or rather that adaptation of it
 
 148 ftbe 3flaw in tbe /Dbarblc. 
 
 which was in those days affected by 
 one or two of the few beautiful women 
 in Paris, and afterwards adopted by 
 quite a number whose profile and fig- 
 ure admitted of no such audacious 
 simplicity of costume. The draping 
 could not have offended the most pur- 
 itanical prudery, for only the throat, 
 the little space between it and the 
 bust, and the arms were bare, though 
 the full, firm modelling of the breast 
 and shoulders was conveyed and, as it 
 were, felt, underneath the robe which 
 covered them. Her naked feet were 
 shod with sandals one, slightly drawn 
 back, showed just the tip of the toes 
 and the suggestion of a lifted heel be- 
 neath the hem of her garment ; the 
 other, fully seen, was shot forward in 
 front of her a little to the left. Her 
 arms, as I have said, were bare to the 
 shoulder, where the over-drapery was 
 clasped by a golden knot and fell in 
 long, sloping lines nearly to the 
 ground. The elbow of one arm the 
 right leaned on the side of the chair, 
 and the hand, the little finger slightly 
 curved downwards, rested in its turn 
 against the cheek with a sense of soft 
 support from which all pressure was
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 149 
 
 absent. The left arm lay across the 
 figure, the palm of the hand turned 
 idly uppermost. There was no sug- 
 gested jewel, or other ornament, on 
 either neck or arms, nor in her hair. 
 
 The statue gave rise at the time to 
 a storm of criticism, the votaries of 
 academic ideas being especially severe 
 in their strictures upon it. They took 
 particular exception to the portrayal 
 of a Greek subject which discarded all 
 accepted conventions in the line of ac- 
 cessories. A Circe was no Circe, they 
 would have you believe, who was thus 
 represented bereft of her attendant 
 panther, and beneath whose throne 
 lurked no captive beasts. Even the 
 traditional, and hitherto inevitable, 
 wine cup was wanting, and the images 
 of possible melody the lyre, the lute, 
 the harp were nowhere to be seen. 
 
 For the wine of this Circe lay only 
 in the intoxication of her smile, the 
 witching harmonies of ancient myth 
 slept in the mute music of her half- 
 parted lips ; the sorcery which lured 
 men to their doom had its only evi- 
 dence in the beauty of her heavy-lidded 
 eyes, in the proud poise of her head, 
 the soft curves of her matchless arms,
 
 iso be 3f law in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 the lithe reposefulness of her whole 
 body, and flowed from her in an atmos- 
 phere of ineffable seduction which was 
 matter less of detail than of an unseiz- 
 able personality. 
 
 The same critics went on to say that 
 the artist had denied to his creation 
 even the saving clause of a suitable 
 adornment. No jewels decked that 
 snowy bosom, no golden snake twined 
 itself about the proud column of her 
 throat, or the suave roundness of her 
 arms. Only a spray of pomegranate 
 flowers lay across the upturned palm of 
 the hand which rested upon her lap. 
 " And what was the meaning of those 
 pomegranate blossoms ? " they asked. 
 Perhaps the artist knew. 
 
 Then they proceeded to attack the 
 treatment of the hair. The head was 
 a beautiful one, they allowed, but it 
 had not been submitted to the coiffeurs 
 of ancient Greece, nor to their succes- 
 sors in the Rue de la Paix. Towzled 
 heads had begun to infest the world 
 even in those days, though they had 
 not, as yet, attained the appalling pro- 
 portions with which we have since 
 become familiar. The Greeks, our mas- 
 ters in all aesthetic tradition, whether
 
 fflaw in tbe fl&arble. 151 
 
 of form or of costume, did not forestall 
 our contemporaries in encouraging 
 their womankind to cover their fore- 
 heads with a mass of tangled curls in 
 emulation of a bull-calf ; their brows 
 were, as a rule, too low to admit of 
 such treatment. But they loved wav- 
 ing locks ; and the generally received 
 idea that perfectly straight-growing 
 hair is inadmissible in the canons of 
 beauty is as old as Apelles. Those 
 who are of a like mind cannot now cor- 
 rect this impression by looking either 
 at Madeleine Le Fagon, or at the 
 " Circe " of Paul Lanthony ; but they 
 can still see Da Vinci's " La Joconde " 
 in the Louvre. 
 
 In that picture the hair, parted 
 simply in the centre of the brow, forms 
 a flat, smooth line cm either side of the 
 head till where, half way down the 
 temple, it begins to wave in large curves 
 merely by stress of its own weight, the 
 extreme ends twisting themselves into 
 a delicious and almost infantile curli- 
 ness. The character of the hair was 
 precisely the same in Madeleine Le 
 Fagon, who so strikingly resembled the 
 picture that she seemed to be its living 
 antitype. This coincidence had earned
 
 is 2 be fflaw in tbe ^barbie. 
 
 for her the sobriquet of " La Joconde," 
 and the habitual arrangement of her 
 hair in front which was in reality only 
 in strict accordance with nature was 
 regarded by some as an affectation em- 
 ployed to emphasize the resemblance. 
 
 The adverse critics were in due 
 course answered by others whose en- 
 thusiasm admitted no drawbacks and 
 recognized no faults ; and the singular 
 interest which the statue aroused in 
 artistic circles, and to a minor extent 
 amongst the general public, was nat- 
 urally increased by the war waged 
 over it. Those who knew Lanthony's 
 previous work were astounded alike at 
 the departure from his early ideals, and 
 the marvelous advance in technique 
 shown by his later effort ; and, what- 
 ever fault might be found with it, every 
 one, they said, must allow that it was 
 a " big thing." 
 
 And for me, a mere ignorant mem- 
 ber of an ignorant public, artists are 
 the best art-critics always provided 
 they are not pronouncing judgment 
 upon their own work. It was not merely 
 on account of its technical excellences, 
 nor because it might be regarded as, in 
 some sense, a denial of faith, that the
 
 Che fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 153 
 
 " Circe " was of such absorbing interest 
 to them, but rather because it struck 
 a new note as far removed from an- 
 tique ideals as from the sculpture 
 which aims at being purely modern. 
 It was, perhaps, more allied to some 
 masterpieces of the Italian Renais- 
 sance in that it gave greater promi- 
 nence to characteristic individuality 
 than to type ; and yet such definition 
 still leaves it a work apart. The 
 " Circe " stands, or rather stood, alone, 
 a woman of no given nation, or type, 
 or period : in her the artist attempted 
 to embody in a concrete form the infi- 
 nite complexities of the " eternal fem- 
 inine." How far he succeeded is an 
 open question ; but if he failed, his 
 failure was, at least, a glorious one. 
 The sculptor and his model alike are 
 dead, and the statue itself is lost to the 
 world ; posterity can judge of it but by 
 hearsay, and it is denied the lasting 
 seal of fame impressed on those things 
 of beauty which the generations, as 
 they pass, proclaim to be a joy for- 
 ever.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DONNEZ-MOl a boire ! " Soeur Anne 
 rose from her seat by the stove, and 
 held a glass to his lips. After which 
 she turned and arranged his pillows, 
 and then she sat down as before, and 
 resumed her knitting. She was always 
 knitting, that woman, when she was 
 not praying often, indeed, she com- 
 bined the two, but he knew nothing of 
 that and Lanthony found himself 
 wondering who wore all the huge- 
 footed pairs of socks she must have 
 accomplished in her many years of 
 sick-nursing. They were all of the 
 same pattern, those socks a short, 
 thin leg and a long, very wide foot. 
 
 It seemed to him as if he had been 
 lying there for years, and as if Soeur 
 Anne had been there all the time. The
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbc Garble. 155 
 
 last few days Carrolin had been to see 
 him dear old Carrolin ! and had 
 looked so sad, and talked in such a 
 funny little voice, that it had made him 
 laugh, and Soeur Anne had turned him 
 out of the room. And Brun had been 
 to see him, and he too had a face as long 
 as a horse, and spoke as small as though 
 he were saying the responses in church. 
 It was all very funny ; what were they 
 sad about, and why did they squeak 
 like clowns? He had seen no one 
 except those two and Soeur Anne since 
 since when ? Once, a long time ago, 
 he had been a sculptor, but that was 
 before before what ? Here he was, 
 lying in bed in broad daylight ; and 
 looking at his arm and wrist on the 
 coverlet he said to himself that he did 
 not think he could do much chiselling, 
 still less blocking-out now, even if he 
 wanted to but he didn't. It was 
 very nice to lie here, and listen to the 
 clock ticking, and watch the firelight 
 dancing on the walls, and have Sceur 
 Anne to do everything one wanted; 
 she was very kind and patient, was 
 Soeur Anne, she seemed to know be- 
 forehand just what one wished for, 
 and she never minded a bit how cross
 
 156 Gbe 3FIaw in tbe flbarble. 
 
 one was ; and then to sleep, sleep, 
 sleep ! 
 
 Paul Lanthony was dying, they said, 
 but he did not know it. For some 
 days after he was first struck down, 
 Sceur Anne would tell you, his mind 
 had wandered, and he had raved of 
 many things of the Circe, of some one 
 he called Madeleine, of the river he 
 had boated on, and the fields he had 
 played in as a boy. But now the 
 struggle for life was over, and death 
 awaited him in an armed truce. He 
 did not suffer at all, for there is a stage 
 of weakness which conquers capacity 
 for pain. He did not know of his suc- 
 cess, and he did not remember his sor- 
 row, as he lay passively sliding out of 
 the world on a swift-flowing stream 
 which was bearing him to the land 
 where all things are forgotten. 
 
 He listened to the clock, and he 
 watched Sceur Anne. She was a tall 
 woman ; her breadth was not easy to 
 determine, for her robes, of a coarse 
 grey serge the costume of the order 
 of nursing sisters to which she belonged 
 hung so loosely about her. She had 
 a broad, plain-featured face, so deeply 
 lined and wrinkled, that it might have
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 157 
 
 been almost any age ; but perhaps 
 much of the sorrow she had seen in 
 the world had entered into it vica- 
 riously. Perhaps, too, she had had sor- 
 rows of her own. But all the tears she 
 had shed, on'her own or others' behalf, 
 had not quenched the light of kindness 
 which shone in her faded eyes. 
 
 Two things Lanthony found hard to 
 forgive her. She had a deep, gruff 
 voice, a voice that never could convey 
 all the tenderness she felt for sick and 
 suffering things ; and she had large, thick 
 hands with thick, short, flat fingers. 
 They could never have been anything 
 but hopelessly ugly hands, and now 
 they were seamed and scarred with the 
 toil of those who are vowed to poverty. 
 Yet they had smoothed many a fevered 
 pillow with a strange instinctive deft- 
 ness that had triumphed over their 
 natural disabilities, and their clasp had 
 many a time been as an assurance of 
 hope to the dying. But her voice and 
 her hands, and, when she first came, the 
 clink, clink of the rosary which she 
 then wore at her side, had been a con- 
 stant source of irritation to Lanthony. 
 The two first were irremediable, and 
 he had got more or less used to them,
 
 158 Gbe jflaw in tbe /Dbarble. 
 
 as one does to anything one sees or 
 hears, at all hours day after day ; but 
 the clink of the rosary was a curable 
 evil, and with that curious instinct she 
 had in some things, Soeur Anne had 
 found out it annoyed him, though he 
 had never said a word about it, and 
 now wore her rosary no more. It lay 
 on the low table beside his bed, along- 
 side of a row of medicine bottles and a 
 little bowl full of violets. Perhaps she 
 had left it there of set purpose, in the 
 hope that it might speak to the dying 
 man of things which she, by the eti- 
 quette of her profession as nurse, was 
 forbidden to make any allusion to. It 
 was made of cherry-wood ; the beads 
 which composed it were dulled and 
 worn with much rolling between its 
 owner's thick, flat fingers, and a small 
 crucifix was attached to one end of it. 
 Lanthony's vague glance wandered 
 over the Figure on the Cross, but his 
 only thought about Sceur Anne's cru- 
 cifix was how badly it was modelled. 
 It was odd, he said to himself, that 
 people should find such a thing as that 
 an aid to prayer prayer which must 
 be difficult enough without any such 
 distraction. His artistic sense con-
 
 fflaw in tbe flfcarble. 159 
 
 cerned itself with the outward aspect, 
 but his ears were deaf to the cry which 
 for her had echoed through the ages 
 " Is it nothing to you all ye that pass 
 by?" 
 
 His eyes roved off to Sceur Anne. 
 How curious it was to think that that 
 silent, shapeless figure with its big 
 hands for ever knitting, knitting, was a 
 woman like like her. Fancy making 
 a statue of Sceur Anne ! The idea 
 tickled him so much that he began to 
 laugh weakly to himself, and his laugh 
 ended, as always now, in a fit of cough- 
 ing. Sceur Anne rose and came to 
 his side immediately, and gave him 
 some mixture, smiling at him the 
 while, a wide, many-gapped smile of in- 
 finite tenderness. Then she smoothed 
 his pillows once more and turned him 
 in his bed, and then she made up the 
 fire and sat down again to knit. Lan- 
 thony found himself calculating how 
 many big-footed stockings Sceur Anne 
 must have knitted since she first came 
 here years ago, but before he had fixed 
 on the exact number he fell asleep.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CARROLIN called, that afternoon as 
 usual, but finding Lanthony asleep 
 wandered out and drifted towards the 
 Palais de 1'Industrie. He used to 
 spend much of his time those days in 
 loitering about within ear-shot of the 
 people who gathered round the 
 " Circe," and picking up fragments of 
 their talk wherewith to amuse or de- 
 light Lanthony when he should be 
 well again and alive to the fact, which 
 every one else knew already, that he 
 was a great man. For Carrolin had 
 an enthusiastic belief in the work, and 
 a rare love for the maker of it, and 
 he refused to allow what all the time 
 he knew to be true, that in a few 
 days, more or less, earthly success 
 would matter not at all to his friend.
 
 Cbe jflaw in tbe Garble. 161 
 
 And he cheated his sorrow in this 
 manner on the afternoon we are speak- 
 ing of. 
 
 The crowd was at its thickest. It 
 was now about half-past five, and 
 there was even a larger knot of people 
 than usual grouped about the " Circe," 
 round which a rope had been placed 
 to protect it from a too eager scrutiny. 
 
 Carrolin had been there some five 
 minutes or so when the original of the 
 statue came slowly along the side 
 alley. She was unattended, and she 
 was not looking at any of the works 
 of art she passed by ; she cared noth- 
 ing for such things, and only came 
 there to see the crowd, whose varied 
 inanity, she said, amused her. 
 
 Arrived opposite the " Circe," she 
 glanced at it for a moment with a 
 little cynical smile ; for, as Martelys 
 had once said of her, " elle se moquait 
 un peu cTellememe comme de tout le 
 monde" then turning, she caught sight 
 of Carrolin and made straight for him. 
 She appeared absolutely unconscious 
 of the little murmur of admiration and 
 excitement which had greeted her 
 appearance, and began thus, 
 
 " He is not wanting in ambition,
 
 162 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 your friend, but apparently he does 
 not appreciate success, for though one 
 hears of nothing but his great work 
 these dull days, one never sees him. 
 Some one said he was ill, but " 
 
 " You were rightly informed, mad- 
 ame," interrupted Carrolin stiffly. 
 "Paul Lanthony is very ill dying, 
 the doctors say." 
 
 She was silent a moment, and then 
 she said slowly in a voice which 
 hardly seemed to belong to her, 
 
 " When how did it all happen?*' 
 
 Carrolin affected a calmness he did 
 not feel, and answered, 
 
 " Oh ! he never can have been very 
 strong, from what the doctors say, and 
 he was always taking a lot out of 
 himself. This is only, if one is to 
 believe them, the natural result of a 
 long strain of overwork and trouble 
 of mind," he added, watching her 
 narrowly. 
 
 She was drawing patterns in the 
 sand with the point of her shoe, and 
 seemed absolutely absorbed in them. 
 
 "About three weeks ago he was 
 struck down, and " 
 
 " Before he knew of his success ? " 
 
 Carrolin bowed assent.
 
 ttbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 163 
 
 "Who is attending him?" she asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Brun and Vieusseux." 
 
 " Good. And his nurse?" 
 
 "Sceur Anne, as good a nurse as 
 can be. He has everything he wants," 
 he added. " Besides, they say there is 
 nothing to be done ; it is merely a 
 question of days." 
 
 She began walking rapidly and me- 
 chanically to the door, and all of a 
 sudden she stopped short and said, 
 
 " Has Chaptel seen him? " 
 
 Carrolin shook his head, and, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders, reiterated, 
 
 " It is but a question of days 
 hours, perhaps." 
 
 He spoke almost impatiently, for 
 with his own words the iron entered 
 into his soul ; and this woman, he 
 reflected, what did it, or anything else, 
 for that matter, signify to her? He 
 wavered in his judgment a moment 
 later, as she turned to him with a flush 
 upon her pale face, and a curious light 
 in her eyes, and said with an animation 
 most unusual to her, 
 
 " But he must not die, I tell you ! " 
 Then observing that he was watching 
 her with astonishment, she recovered
 
 164 Gbe 3FU*w in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 her habitual composure, and added 
 quietly, "An artist like that ! " 
 
 Still he looked at her surprised, but 
 his surprise was of a different quality. 
 
 " I know what you are thinking," 
 she went on ; " that is a new language 
 for me to speak, is it not ? I am no 
 artist myself, Lon, and, as you know, 
 I don't much believe in the existence 
 of artists. But if there be such a 
 thing, your friend is one." 
 
 They were walking through the ves- 
 tibule, and had already reached one of 
 the exits. 
 
 " I agree with you, madame," an- 
 swered Carrolin gravely, " but, unfor- 
 tunately, he is also a man, and art will 
 not save his life." 
 
 She halted a moment to give a 
 direction to the servant who held the 
 door of her coupe, and was whirled 
 rapidly away. Ten minutes later her 
 carriage dashed up to the door of a 
 house in the Rue Scribe, where lived 
 Chaptel, the most famous of the Paris 
 physicians of that day. The horses 
 had hardly been pulled up when she 
 alighted, before her servant had time 
 to get down, and ran up the broad 
 staircase leading to the first floor,
 
 Jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 165 
 
 where she caromed against a tall 
 man dressed in a long fur coat Chap- 
 tel himself, in the act of fitting his 
 latch-key into the door of his apart- 
 ment. 
 
 " Heavens! what is the matter?" he 
 asked, eyeing her anxiously, for her 
 face was deathly pale. 
 
 "Nothing; I ran upstairs too fast, 
 that's all. Tell me you are just 
 going out? " 
 
 " On the contrary ; I am just coming 
 in. What can I " 
 
 " Good ! You are coming with me. 
 My carriage is downstairs." 
 
 But " 
 
 "There is no but, Chaptel when I 
 tell you it's a case of life and death." 
 
 She was already half way down the 
 stairs, and Chaptel followed her as he 
 was bidden. Not so long ago he 
 would have followed her to the end of 
 the world, and if time had in some 
 measure modified his infatuation, she 
 still possessed no small influence over 
 him. Once seated in the carriage, 
 dashing along the streets, he knew not 
 whither, she said to him, 
 
 " You have heard of Paul Lan- 
 thony?"
 
 166 abe fflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 " The man who did the ' Circe ' ? 
 Oh ! yes, we all have the last few days, 
 but I haven't had time to go to see it." 
 
 " It is him you are going to see," 
 she said quietly. " He is dying, they 
 say." 
 
 "Is any one attending him?" asked 
 Chaptel quickly. 
 
 " Oh! Brun, Vieusseux and " 
 
 " But, ma chere, you ask impossibili- 
 ties of me. I cannot go and see their 
 patient without consulting with them 
 beforehand." 
 
 " Oh ! let us stand on our dignity 
 even at the brink of the grave ! " she 
 burst out bitterly. 
 
 " It is the way of the world," said he 
 drily ; " life is made up of conventions 
 and we cannot help ourselves ;" and he 
 stretched out his hand towards the 
 check-string. 
 
 " Oh ! Raymond, you will not fail me 
 in this the only thing I ever asked you 
 to do," she pleaded, laying her hand 
 caressingly upon his arm. 
 
 " It matters as much as that ? " he 
 asked in a low voice, looking down at 
 her pale face. 
 
 She withdrew her hand, and answered 
 in quite her ordinary voice, repeating
 
 fflaw in tbc Garble. 167 
 
 the words she had used to Carrolin half 
 an hour back, 
 
 " Such an artist ! and there are so 
 few ! " 
 
 " It can be arranged," said he, also 
 in quite a different tone; and putting 
 his head out of the window he gave 
 the coachman an address. " Vieus- 
 seux is a friend of mine, I will see 
 him in passing; we are almost at his 
 door." 
 
 He left her in the carriage, and in a 
 few minutes returned with a small bun- 
 dle of papers in his hand Vieusseux's 
 notes of the case. " It is all right," he 
 said ; " Vieusseux answers for Brun ; " 
 and then he became absorbed in the 
 notes. 
 
 " What is the matter with him, Ray- 
 mond ? " asked a low voice by his side. 
 
 Chaptel roused himself with a start, 
 and rolling the papers together, said, 
 
 " Oh, nothing everything. He 
 never had a strong constitution, from 
 what Vieusseux says, and he has ruined 
 it by over-work. This attack is due to 
 some severe shock to his nerves and, 
 through them, to his heart. The news 
 of his success, possibly I have known 
 cases like that."
 
 168 abe jftaw in tbe /Garble. 
 
 " He does not know of it/' she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " No ? Well, then, some other strong 
 emotion. Chagrin cT amour, peut-etre ; 
 qui sait ?" 
 
 Soeur Anne opened the door to them. 
 She seemed somewhat surprised, but 
 she knew Chaptel by sight, and he 
 went on to tell her that he had ar- 
 ranged with Dr. Vieusseux to see the 
 patient, and that Madeleine would wait 
 till he had done so. They passed 
 through the ante-chamber to the little 
 sitting-room beyond, out of which 
 opened Lanthony's bedroom. There 
 Chaptel halted a moment to look at 
 Sceur Anne's written report and at 
 Brun's latest prescriptions. Brun had 
 just been there, she said; he did not 
 think the patient would last the night 
 he was asleep, had been asleep for 
 several hours, and the doctor thought 
 he would not wake again. 
 
 While they were talking together, 
 Madeleine, who could hear all they 
 said, was taking in every detail of the 
 things about the room the sketches, 
 gifts of brother-artists, the casts in min- 
 iature of various well-known Greek an- 
 tiques, the books in a corner cupboard,
 
 fftaw in tbe flbarble. 169 
 
 and a photograph or two of the Elgin 
 marbles. There was nowhere to be 
 seen reproduction or reminder of his 
 own work, and she remembered his tell- 
 ing her that, once completed, he ceased 
 to care for it. 
 
 At length her eyes lit upon a terra- 
 cotta vase standing on a bracket, and 
 in the vase was a branch of faded pome- 
 granate flowers. At the sight of that 
 mute allegory she winced. 
 
 Chaptel nodded to Soeur Anne and,, 
 pushing aside the portiere, went into 
 the adjoining room. The two women 
 followed. Madeleine only glanced once 
 towards the bed. Was it possible that 
 that still, huddled form with the white 
 face and closed eyes was ? 
 
 Chaptel's examination lasted but a 
 very few minutes, but it seemed to her 
 hours before he came across the room 
 towards her. He stood drumming 
 with his fingers on the table and look- 
 ing down at them without speaking. 
 
 "Well?" asked Madeleine at length. 
 
 " It's a pity," he said, more to him- 
 self than to her. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Brun is right," he replied ; " he will 
 not pass the night."
 
 fflaw in tbc dbarble. 
 
 " Are you sure?" 
 
 "As certain as one can be of any- 
 thing in this world. It is very un- 
 likely he will wake again, and he will 
 be dead before morning." 
 
 There was silence for a moment or 
 two, and then she said, 
 
 " And if he wakes, what would have 
 to be done?" 
 
 "Nothing," replied Chaptel, "ex- 
 cept to give him something to drink, 
 and if he is restless some of these drops ; 
 but he will not wake." 
 
 " Hush ! " she said, with a motion 
 of her head towards the figure in the 
 bed. 
 
 " He cannot hear he will not wake," 
 reiterated Chaptel. 
 
 She reflected a moment and then 
 said, 
 
 " Man bon Chaptel, I shall stay here 
 to-night. You say there is nothing to 
 be done but what the veriest child 
 could do," she went on, answering his 
 unspoken objection ; " but if I cannot 
 be trusted to do that, I can call Sceur 
 Anne. She is worn out, and can rest 
 in the next room while I keep watch." 
 
 Chapel was silent for a second or 
 two, and then said,
 
 jflaw in tbc flbarble. 171 
 
 " It would be well for her to have 
 some rest, poor soul. But it will be a 
 long and dreary watch for you," he 
 added, as if to test her readiness for 
 her self-imposed task. 
 
 " I can do with very little sleep, and 
 I do not play again till next week," 
 was the reply. 
 
 " Also," he went on, " if by some 
 unlikely chance he were to wake, it 
 might startle him to see an unaccus- 
 tomed figure in the room not, indeed, 
 that anything can make much differ- 
 ence to him now." 
 
 " I can slip on Soeur Anne's robe 
 when she goes to lie down ; we are 
 much of a height." 
 
 " You cannot change faces with 
 Soeur Anne," he said, smiling, as he 
 looked at her. " But," he put in as an 
 after-thought, " if he becomes conscious 
 at all again, he will not be able to take 
 in anything beyond a superficial im- 
 pression of the things about him." 
 
 Consummate physician though he 
 was, Chaptel reckoned without that 
 artistic instinct which outlives the 
 strongest emotions of our nature and 
 defies to the last the blindness of death. 
 
 So it was settled : matters were ex-
 
 172 abe fflaw in tbe fl&arble. 
 
 plained to Soeur Anne, and Chaptel 
 took his leave, saying he would call 
 again early in the morning. 
 
 Then Soeur Anne, having arranged all 
 things for the night in the sick-room, 
 came to help Madeleine to dress in the 
 garb necessary to her hours of watch- 
 ing. The ample folds of coarse, grey 
 serge having been somehow adapted to 
 Madeleine's slender form, she smiled a 
 little as Sceur Anne arranged the coiffe 
 upon her head, tightly drawing the 
 white band across her brow and over 
 her hair; and Sceur Anne smiled back 
 at her a wide smile of kindly encour- 
 agement. Hers was a charity which 
 thinketh no evil. When the toilette 
 was completed, Sceur Anne, still smil- 
 ing, held up a small glass that Made- 
 leine might look at herself. But 
 Madeleine did not need it, her mirror 
 was the other woman's eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! madame," said Sceur Anne, 
 shaking her grey old head, " you are 
 too beautiful for a Sister of Charity." 
 
 And then Madeleine, whether pleased 
 by so graceful a compliment from so 
 unexpected a source, or because, for 
 the moment, she really felt what she 
 said, bent her head with an infinite
 
 Gbe ff law in tbc /ftarblc. 17? 
 
 grace over the old woman's rough 
 hand and kissed it, and " Nothing is 
 too beautiful for so beautiful a thing,. 
 ma sceur" said she. 
 
 Soeur Anne before lying down that 
 night prayed for blessings on the beau- 
 tiful lady as well as on her patient. 
 And with the invariable catalogue of 
 her self-imputed sins and short-comings 
 mingled the recollection of that gra- 
 cious kiss and heavenly smile. 
 
 Moreover, la Soeur Anne for ever 
 afterwards spoke of Madeleine as " an 
 angel," and she was the only person I 
 ever knew who applied that epithet to 
 Madeleine Le Fagon for long to- 
 gether.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEMANDEZ Le Soir article de 
 Victor de Clavieres sur la ' Circe ' ! ! 
 " Demandez Les Echos des Boulevards 
 Notes du Salon avec photog- 
 raphies ! ! " shouted the newspaper ven- 
 dors in the street. 
 
 It was now nearly ten o'clock. Sceur 
 Anne was fast asleep in the next room, 
 and Madeleine sat by the fire listening 
 to the cries in the street, and the roar of 
 the distant traffic broken by the occa- 
 sional rattle of a passing vehicle, and 
 thinking of the man lying in the bed 
 yonder the man she had made and 
 marred. Not that her reflections took 
 such crude shape as this. They were 
 manifold upon the result which had 
 transpired ; but, habitually analytical 
 though she was, she avoided dwelling
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. *;! 
 
 on its probable cause. How hard, sh'e 
 mused, for a man who cared for success 
 to be doomed to death just as life 
 smiled fully on him, and to die without 
 even knowing the fame he had achieved, 
 without knowing (here her thoughts 
 took a more personal turn) something 
 she herself could tell him. Yes, she 
 could tell him now, why not ? since 
 he was to die to-night, and dead men 
 tell no tales. It could do him no harm 
 to know it now, and it might even make 
 up to him a little for for 
 
 She was getting dangerously near to 
 an admission which she was determined 
 to deny, even to herself, and she turned 
 with an effort to think of other things. 
 What a pity that such an artist should 
 be lost to the world, for, as she had al- 
 ready said to Carrolin that afternoon, 
 if ever there was an artist it was he. 
 What a long time it had taken him to 
 find out that there was anything else 
 in the world except art, she reflected, 
 with a slow, retrospective smile any- 
 thing to be loved and admired except 
 abstract beauty, anything to be desired 
 and yearned for save success in repre- 
 senting it ! She could not understand 
 it, she cared for none of these things,
 
 f 76 Cbe Jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 she was no artist. She could not un- 
 derstand other things either, the 
 things that had eventually come to 
 him ; and a pang shot through the in- 
 difference in which she had steeled 
 herself, at the recollection that it was 
 this very man who had said to her, 
 "Art is nothing, money is nothing, 
 fame is nothing, nothing is anything 
 save one thing." She thought of the 
 tone of his voice as he had spoken, and 
 recalled the expression of his face ; she 
 looked at him where he now lay, and 
 her eyes filled with tears. Yet all the 
 while she smiled. 
 
 Then she drifted off into a sort of 
 vague self-pity that to her alone such 
 capacity of belief and emotion was 
 denied. Why was she made differ- 
 ent from all other women in that 
 she could never trust without ques- 
 tion, or love without reserve? Those 
 were the happy ones, those other com- 
 mon-place, ordinary beings, who passed 
 their lives in roving from one hot, brief 
 fire of caprice to another, or contented 
 themselves with a hum-drum /#/- u-feu 
 affection the very thought of which 
 made her yawn ! But straw fires soon 
 burn themselves out ; and one is too
 
 ttbe flaw in tbe /barbie. 177 
 
 like another to have much charm in its 
 flare ; and a slow coal furnace is but a 
 poor heat and light for those who long 
 for an impossible sun. She could not 
 emulate them, ces autres, and, after all, 
 she did not envy them. 
 
 Of all the many men she had met 
 but one had ever had power to move 
 her, and he lay dying. Yet had he 
 lived, it could have made no difference, 
 some, perhaps, at first to him, and 
 then he would have forgotten ; he was 
 but a man after all, though different 
 from his fellows in so many ways, and 
 she could not do as other women did 
 and believe him a god. It was better 
 for him she could not, she told herself, 
 better for them both. She would not 
 sell her freedom for the bondage of 
 love, however sweet. True, she had 
 always said that if she ever found a 
 man who loved her as she would be 
 loved, she would love him, and that 
 the man she loved she would marry. 
 Well, she had in Paul Lanthony found 
 such a man. Others how many ! 
 had said much the same thing to her 
 before, but she had not believed them. 
 She believed him ; he loved her and 
 she loved him. Oh ! yes, she loved
 
 i?8 Gbe fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 him, she repeated almost fiercely to 
 herself, as though the repetition could 
 make it true. She loved him, but not 
 enough or too much. Some dreams, 
 as she had once told him, are too fair 
 and frail to bear the light of day. 
 Could he live, she felt, she knew, she 
 would never marry him. She could 
 not bear to confront her dream with 
 reality, she could not bear to find out 
 through the daily sum of inevitable 
 common-places the limitations of the 
 man she loved ; still less (and here a 
 touch of feminine nature showed itself 
 with sharply-defined precision) that he 
 should discover hers. Happy they, she 
 said to herself with a sad little smile, 
 for whom the dream remains a dream, 
 an adorable and adored thing of the 
 imagination to be for ever worshipped. 
 But the man she loved was dying, 
 and if he awoke from his last earthly 
 sleep she would tell him of what had 
 been, of what was, and he should carry 
 his dream with him out into the dark- 
 ness and solitude which awaited him.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHILE Madeleine sat musing over 
 the fire the sick man in the bed was 
 thinking out his thoughts too. He 
 had wakened some time ago, but she 
 did not know it, for he neither stirred 
 nor spoke. He knew he was dying 
 now, for a while ago a tall man, whom 
 he did not know, had stood by his 
 bed and told him so told Soeur Anne 
 so, for they had thought he was asleep. 
 And Soeur Anne had bowed her head 
 and crossed herself. Poor, kind Sceur 
 Anne ! The man was a doctor, he 
 supposed, for she had called him 
 " Monsieur le docteur," and he had 
 said that he, Lanthony, was to die to- 
 night, and of course he knew. And 
 then he must have gone to sleep again, 
 for he dreamed that .Madeleine was in
 
 i8o tCbe JFlaw in tbc dfcarble. 
 
 the room, he had heard the rustle of 
 her dress, he had smelt the sweet indef- 
 inite scent as of dried violets that 
 there always was about her, and he 
 had seen her face ; and it was all a 
 dream of course, for what should bring 
 her here? But it was so good a dream 
 that he set himself not to wake ; he 
 wanted to sleep for ever with that 
 sweet vision for his company. And 
 now he was awake again in spite of 
 himself, wide awake, for he could hear 
 the clock ticking, and the distant hum 
 of the city whose streets he should 
 never walk again, and there was Soeur 
 Anne in her grey dress sitting by the 
 fire with her back towards him, and the 
 little ring of light on the table round 
 the shaded vielleuse, everything just as 
 it had been every night since since 
 when? 
 
 It did not much matter, though, be- 
 ing awake, for when he shut his eyes 
 his dream was with him still, and he 
 saw again that unforgettable face, with 
 its grave eyes and its inscrutable smile. 
 Then with a little pang of more per- 
 fect consciousness he remembered 
 dimly how and when he had known the 
 vision of his dream before : many
 
 Jflaw in tbc Garble. 181 
 
 scenes and places drifted through his 
 mind, a crowded theatre with people 
 stamping and cheering, the corner 
 of a sitting-room where pomegranates 
 bloom-ed, the garden at St. Cloud, the 
 way the top-light in the studio used to 
 strike upon her head, the day upon the 
 river. But the pain he felt was but of 
 short duration, and the scenes that 
 slid before his mind's eye were seen as 
 through a misty veil ; all that was 
 years ago, and he was to die to-night. 
 Did she know he was dying, he won- 
 dered ? And would she care if he 
 did ? No, she would only smile. But 
 the remembrance of that smile which 
 had once stabbed his heart like a knife- 
 thrust now glanced off harmless from 
 the invulnerable armor of his weak- 
 ness. 
 
 He turned his head on the pillow 
 very cautiously, for he did not want to 
 arouse Soeur Anne. She was an angel 
 of kind attention, and would certainly 
 come to him directly if she knew he 
 moved, and he wanted just to look 
 about a little and think, if he could, 
 and then dream again until he died. 
 
 Looking through the unshuttered 
 windows (he habitually slept with his
 
 i82 {Ebe fflaw in tbe rtbarble. 
 
 shutters unclosed, and since his illness 
 had insisted on their being open, that 
 he might look out when he woke) he 
 could see a streak of pale light the re- 
 flection of which was caught up into 
 the dark spaces of the sky above, and 
 struck down again to the grey unde- 
 fined house-roofs and fagades below. 
 The chimney-pots and weather-cocks in 
 this faint, uncertain light looked like 
 queer phantom waifs washed in by 
 some weird magic in darkish grey 
 against the grey background of sky. 
 
 As Lanthony watched the widening 
 bar of wan light, his thoughts strayed 
 to a far-off adoration of his boyhood, 
 the " Dawn " of Michael Angelo that 
 most sublime incarnation of the saddest 
 impression in the world. The yearning 
 for the vanished dream of night, the 
 dim presage of inevitable sorrow, the 
 loth wakening of reposeful limbs, the 
 prescience of a burden to be borne all 
 this is written large on sky and earth in 
 the infinite and unutterable pathos of 
 dawning day. And he undersood it all, 
 that dead hewer of stones, thought the 
 lesser artist who lay watching the last 
 dawn he was ever to see on earth flush- 
 ing into daybreak. " When the night
 
 fflaw in tbc Garble. 183 
 
 is past and the shadows flee away " 
 who had said that ? Some one else 
 who knew all about it ; but what did 
 it all matter? there were to be no 
 more days for him. 
 
 He was thirsty, though, oh ! so 
 thirsty. " Donnez-moi a boire ! " 
 
 Soeur Anne rose from her seat by 
 the fire, and coming to his side held a 
 glass to his lips, supporting his head 
 with her other hand. As he drank he 
 looked mechanically at the fingers 
 which held the glass. What were 
 those lithe, round, taper, white bands 
 which twined themselves about it? 
 Soeur Anne had changed her hands! 
 
 " En veux-tu 'encore ? " asked a soft, 
 low voice that rang back in his ears as 
 an echo of the world he had left be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Soeur Anne had changed her voice ! 
 
 Then, looking up, he saw a face 
 unfurrowed by the hand of time, 
 eyes from which shone the very sun of 
 tenderness and a smile ah! that 
 smile ! 
 
 Soeur Anne had changed her face. 
 
 He put his hands beyond her wrists 
 to where he could feel the shape and 
 fashion of her arms, and then sank
 
 184 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 back upon his pillow to die his dream 
 had come true. 
 
 Neither of them spoke for some 
 time, then, " Paul," said a voice, and 
 he lifted his eyes to meet that all- 
 embracing smile. One cool, white 
 hand rested on his brow, the other 
 was fast in both of his. He did not 
 ask her why or how she came to be 
 there there was no time for that ; 
 there was so little time left now only 
 he held her hand and he would hold it 
 always for ever just like that. The 
 stillness of dawn was over the city, and 
 every one was asleep, even Sceur 
 Anne, every one but their two selves 
 her hand in his. Was it earth, was 
 it Heaven, or was it some lovely Para- 
 dise between the two ? he did not 
 know he only knew his dream was 
 true. 
 
 " Paul," said the voice, " the Circe " 
 
 "What Circe?" 
 
 " Yours the statue you made. Oh ! 
 Paul, don't you remember? " 
 
 " The Circe oh ! yes you came to 
 the studio two, four, eight how many 
 times?" 
 
 "Well, your Circe is famous. It 
 was accepted, and all Paris is flocking
 
 Cbc flaw in tbe Garble. 185 
 
 to see it, and they say it is great 
 very great indeed the greatest thing 
 of modern times, de Clavieres called 
 it." 
 
 " Ah ! I knew she had got in " (re- 
 ferring to Carrolin's, at the time, un- 
 heeded announcement) some one told 
 me I forget who and then, I think, 
 I got ill and I have been ill for 
 years ; and the doctor said I should die 
 to-night and it is almost morning 
 now," he added with a strange little 
 smile. 
 
 Down the cheeks of the woman who 
 " had never shed a tear in her life " 
 coursed very real and human tears as 
 she listened. 
 
 " Why do you cry, Madeleine ? " he 
 asked ; but no answer came. 
 
 After a pause, he said, 
 ' " Madeleine, do you remember 
 that day on the river? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes I remember, I remem- 
 ber "' 
 
 " Well, I want you to know don't 
 laugh at me the beginning of that day 
 only the beginning I thought you 
 loved me ! " 
 
 An irresistible wave of tenderness 
 swept over her.
 
 i86 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 " Oh ! my beloved," she exclaimed. 
 " I did love you I do love you, I 
 came here to tell you I love you, I 
 love you, I love you," and bending 
 her lips towards his she kissed him. 
 
 There was a silence as of death, and 
 then he came back to life, as it were 
 with a start. Then he said, 
 
 " I am very tired, Madeleine, and 
 I think I shall go to sleep but you 
 won't go away ever again and when I 
 wake up we we will go out together 
 always together, on the river, and 
 why don't you speak, Madeleine?" 
 
 " Ah ! mon pauvre ami ! " 
 
 He turned his eyes to meet the red 
 glory of the spring sunrise. They had 
 said he was to die ; they had lied. He 
 was going to live he would must 
 live. Oh ! priceless boon of life de- 
 spised ! 
 
 He withdrew his hand gently from 
 her clasp, and putting his two hands 
 together, just as he had done when he 
 was a little boy, he prayed, prayed for 
 life, as in that far-off time he had 
 prayed for a fine day or a coveted toy, 
 and later on, though this but rarely, 
 for success in his art. 
 
 " Dear God, be kind and let me live,"
 
 ' HKNDING HER LIPS TOWARDS HIS SHE KISSED 
 
 HIM." Page i8b.
 
 Jflaw in tbc /Barbie. 187 
 
 he murmured. " Blessed Mother of 
 Christ, plead for me." 
 
 Then, clasping her hand once more 
 
 in both of his, smiling he slept. 
 # * * * * 
 
 He was sleeping still when Chaptel 
 came in the morning about seven and, 
 turning to Soeur Anne, who was up 
 and about again, said after a brief 
 examination, 
 
 " He is saved." 
 
 " Mother of God, blessed be Thy 
 Name, now and for ever! " said Soeur 
 Anne, crossing herself devoutly, while 
 her kind old eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Chaptel went into the next room 
 where Madeleine was pacing nervously 
 up and down. 
 
 " Well ! it's nothing short of a mira- 
 cle ! " he exclaimed ; *' he is alive, and 
 he will live. It is beyond comprehen- 
 sion." 
 
 Madeleine listened in silence, smil- 
 ing the while that strange smile of hers. 
 Yet, through the smile, there was a 
 certain vague suggestion of disquie- 
 tude. 
 
 "Did he wake during the night?" 
 asked Chaptel. 
 
 " Yes, and I gave him what you told
 
 i88 Cbe jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 me ; but not the drops, for he went to 
 sleep again almost immediately." 
 
 " It is beyond comprehension," he 
 repeated. " But you are looking worn 
 out," he added, glancing sharply at her. 
 " I must see Vieusseux as soon as may 
 be ; but let me take you home first." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Sceur Anne will get me a cab pres- 
 ently," she said ; and then after a 
 momentary hesitation she continued, 
 " It is better you should know, Ray- 
 mond, when when he woke, I told 
 him of the Circe of his success, I 
 mean," she added almost timidly. 
 
 Chaptel stared at her for a moment 
 in amaze. Then he said drily, 
 
 " It might have killed him instantan- 
 eously, but ' a succes tout honneur ! ' 
 and, as things have turned out, art has 
 done what science could not do." 
 
 "Dts, Chaptel," she said, breaking 
 the silence which followed, "you are 
 sure he will live ? " 
 
 " As certain as one can be of any- 
 thing in this world," he repeated, this 
 time with a smile. 
 
 " Then," she said, looking straight 
 at him, "you will understand that I 
 have never been here. There must be
 
 cbc ff law in tbe /Ibarblc. 189 
 
 no question of that, no mention to any 
 one, not even to M. Lanthony himself 
 you understand?" 
 
 " I understand," he answered slowly, 
 averting his eyes. " It is only known 
 to two persons, and, as far as I myself 
 am concerned, there will be no diffi- 
 culty, for it is not necessary that I 
 should see him again. But Soeur 
 Anne? " 
 
 " Oh ! I will arrange with Soeur 
 Anne. He has had, since his illness, 
 many dreams, many delusions, she tells 
 me. People ill as he is often have." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, this will be a dream or a de- 
 lusion, like the rest. I am no doctor, 
 Raymond, but, believe me, it is best 
 for your patient that it should be so." 
 
 Presumably Chaptel agreed with her, 
 for he offered no objection and made 
 no further comment. But he muttered 
 to himself " Poor devil ! " as he went 
 
 downstairs. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Lanthony knew nothing of all this. 
 He only knew that, between sleeping 
 and waking, he had heard a whispered 
 colloquy between Soeur Anne and 
 Madeleine, and that Soeur Anne had
 
 *9 Gbe jflaw in tbe flbatble. 
 
 left the room. And then Madeleine 
 had knelt down by his bed and cov- 
 ered her face with her hands, and in 
 a moment he knew she was crying 
 she who never cried ! And he had 
 said, 
 
 "Why do you cry, Madeleine? I 
 am going to live to live for a long 
 time and " 
 
 " Ah ! mon pauvre ami ! "
 
 PART IV.
 
 " A s a dream when one awaketk"
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CARROLIN was walking across the 
 Place de la Concorde on his way to 
 make his daily inquiry about Lan- 
 thony, with a cold dread at his heart, 
 which had become chronic to the 
 occasion, when Chaptel, who hap- 
 pened to be passing, stopped him and 
 said, 
 
 " Well ! your friend is saved." 
 
 " Lanthony ? He " 
 
 " He has turned the corner, and 
 ought now to make rapid progress 
 towards recovery." 
 
 Carrolin uncovered his head for a 
 second in an unconscious tribute of 
 thankfulness; then warmly shaking 
 the doctor by the hand, he exclaimed, 
 
 " How proud you must be, Chaptel ! 
 Why, Brun and Vieusseux both agreed
 
 194 Cbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 that nothing short of a miracle could 
 save him." 
 
 "And in my opinion they were 
 right. But the miracle was wrought 
 only I can take no share of the praise, 
 for I had nothing to say to it." Then 
 seeing Carrolin's look of inquiry, he 
 added, " It was simply one of those 
 extraordinary efforts of nature the 
 instinctive determination to live, I 
 suppose one may call it which science 
 can neither account for nor explain 
 away." 
 
 " When do you see him again ? " 
 
 "There is no reason why I should 
 do so. He has the best of care and 
 treatment, and nothing remains now 
 but to get his strength up. Besides, I 
 simply attended him for the sake of an 
 extra opinion which, I am happy to 
 say, has turned out valueless." 
 
 They parted, and Carrolin, changing 
 his course, turned up the Avenue des 
 Champs Elysees to inform Madeleine 
 Le Fagon of what he had just heard. 
 He would probably have been refused 
 admittance at so early an hour but 
 that, when the door was opened, he 
 found her talking in the hall to a man 
 whom he recognized as an auctioneer
 
 fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 195 
 
 of the Rue Drouot. " You will then 
 please lose no time," she was saying, 
 " in sending some competent person 
 to make the inventory." Then mov- 
 ing a step forward she caught sight of 
 Carrolin, and said, " Come in, Mon- 
 sieur Carrolin, I shall be at liberty in a 
 moment." 
 
 " We can begin this afternoon, if 
 you wish, madame," said the man. 
 
 " The sooner the better," was her 
 reply ; and motioning to Carrolin to 
 follow her, she led the way to her 
 boudoir. 
 
 Now that she stood in a clear light, 
 he saw that she looked pale and 
 harassed, and in such discovery he 
 forgot for the moment the object of 
 his visit. 
 
 " Eh bien, Leon, what is it ? I am 
 very busy this morning," she said, 
 with a sort of nervous impatience in 
 her tone. 
 
 " I shall not detain you long," he 
 replied ; " I I only came to tell you 
 that Paul Lanthony is recovering." 
 
 "Ah! Who told you ?" 
 
 " I met Chaptel, who had been 
 called in when the others gave up all 
 hope."
 
 196 be fflaw in tbe flbatble. 
 
 " Ah ! never say die, Carrolin ! I 
 told you Chaptel would save your 
 friend, if any one could." 
 
 " But he says he had nothing to say 
 to it it is a miracle which he can 
 neither deny nor explain." 
 
 A momentary flash which he could 
 not account for lit up her eyes, and 
 for the first time in their colloquy she 
 smiled. Then she said, 
 
 " Well, I am very glad for you and 
 for your friend. It would have been 
 a pity if his career had been cut short 
 before it was well begun." 
 
 They both remained silent, he long- 
 ing to ask a question which he dared 
 not formulate, and she, apparently, 
 lost in her own reflections. She was 
 rapidly revolving in her mind the ad- 
 visability of taking Carrolin into her 
 confidence as to the events of the 
 previous night. He was still her 
 friend, though he had wished to be 
 more, and she trusted him as she 
 Jrusted very few people. Finally she 
 decided against it ; two people already 
 knew the fact of her visit to Lanthony, 
 and that was two too many, but pro- 
 fessional reasons ensured their silence, 
 and she had more faith in that than in
 
 Jflaw in tbe /Barbie. 197 
 
 the discretion of friendship. She felt, 
 besides, that in Carrolin's case the 
 exigencies of friendship would neces- 
 sarily be conflicting, and she deter- 
 mined not to risk it. Having thus 
 mentally disposed of the point, she 
 turned to him and said suddenly, 
 
 " I told you I was very busy, and 
 not without reason I am leaving 
 Paris." 
 
 "Leaving Paris!" he repeated in a 
 dazed sort of way, " when, and for how 
 long ? " 
 
 " One question at a time, mon bon" 
 she replied, smiling. " When ? al- 
 most immediately ; for how long ? I 
 cannot tell." 
 
 " Why ? " coming a step nearer to her. 
 
 " More questions ! Why ? Oh ! for 
 no very special reason, and for quite a 
 number of reasons. Firstly, because I 
 am tired of it; secondly, because about 
 a fortnight ago I received an offer from 
 St. Petersburg which I am disposed to 
 accept." 
 
 " And your engagement here ? " ne 
 asked, more to gain time to collect his 
 thoughts than because he at all cared 
 for information on the point. 
 
 " I have written to Thibaud and
 
 198 tlbe Jflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 offered him any compensation within 
 reason that he chooses to ask. But he 
 will really rather gain by my move. 
 He will get a considerable amount of 
 money out of me for his imaginary loss 
 by my breach of contract, and as Marie 
 Leyder has been my understudy now 
 for nearly two years, and is word- 
 perfect in all my parts, neither the 
 piece in hand, nor those promised on 
 the list need be changed." 
 
 At any other time Carrolin would 
 have laughed aloud at the idea of a 
 possible substitute for Le Fagon, but 
 all other considerations were swamped 
 in the capital one of her departure. 
 
 " It all fits in very a propos" she 
 went on ; " for some Americans whose 
 acquaintance I made the other day de- 
 clare themselves willing to take my 
 house off my hands at my own valu- 
 ation, and Simon of the Rue Drouot 
 promises me splendid results from the 
 sale of such things as I am willing to 
 part with. It is a great thing, Leon," 
 she said, looking at him with a curious 
 smile, " to take leave of people before 
 they are tired of one." 
 
 He was silent, gazing at her with 
 all his eyes.
 
 jflaw in tbe fl&arble. 199 
 
 " But, Madeleine," he said at last, in 
 a voice which seemed to him to be- 
 long to some one else, " when will you 
 come back again ? " 
 
 "Ah! that, mon ami, I cannot tell." 
 
 " But you will come back?" he per- 
 sisted. 
 
 " Perhaps who knows ? " 
 
 A servant came in to tell her that 
 some men of business were waiting, 
 and Carrolin took his leave. He 
 walked downstairs like one in a dream. 
 This was a day of surprises. " Per- 
 haps who knows?" he repeated 
 stupidly, half aloud. 
 
 Left to herself, Madeleine stood 
 musing a moment, and a strange mist 
 seemed to rise before her eyes as she 
 murmured, 
 
 " It is the only way : sometimes 
 prudence is worth more than courage."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LANTHONY slept on through many 
 hours, and when he awoke the grey- 
 robed figure was still kneeling by his 
 bed, its face bent downwards. He 
 turned himself slightly with an effort, 
 and kissed the top of the white coiffe. 
 The figure lifted its head, and lo ! 
 Soeur Anne had changed her face again ! 
 Yes, this was none other than the 
 seamed and tanned countenance that 
 he knew so well ; but at his greeting 
 she looked up at him with such an ir- 
 radiating glow of gentle joyfulness re- 
 flected, as it were, from her lately whis- 
 pered thanksgivings, that Lanthony 
 could not find it in his heart to regret 
 his mistake. As for Soeur Anne, she 
 regarded it simply as a natural ebulli- 
 tion of that universal kindness which 
 belongs not infrequently to those who
 
 Cbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 201 
 
 have visited the dark valley, and have 
 been, as by a miracle, snatched back 
 again to life. 
 
 Where was Madeleine, Lanthony 
 wondered. She had probably gone 
 into the next room to rest ; she would 
 be back presently, and he was content 
 just to lie and await her coming. But 
 as the hours went on he began to get 
 restless and impatient of the long delay. 
 At last he could stand it no longer, 
 and said to Sceur Anne, 
 
 " Where is where is that lady?" 
 
 Then, as she looked at him blankly, 
 he added irritably, 
 
 " The lady who was here last night 
 who watched by me when you were 
 not here?" 
 
 Sceur Anne smiled indulgently as she 
 replied, shaking her wise old head, 
 
 "Ah! that must have been some 
 beautiful dream you had. You have 
 been dreaming, you know, monsieur, 
 about one thing and another for ever 
 so long. When at the beginning you 
 were very ill, your dreams were sad or 
 terrible, and now that you are better, 
 they are good and beautiful. It is 
 often like that." 
 
 " But this was no dream," he per-
 
 202 Gbe JFlaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 sisted. " Surely you must know that. 
 I saw her and spoke to her, and she to 
 me of of many things." 
 
 " You must be mistaken, cher mon- 
 sieur,'' 1 murmured Sceur Anne. 
 
 It was clear to her from what the 
 beautiful lady had said, and from what 
 she had told her Chaptel had said, that 
 it was her duty to persist in this right- 
 eous lie ; but ft was repugnant to her 
 nature, and her difficulty was increased 
 by the sight of Lanthony's distress. 
 For she had seen too much of unavoid- 
 able suffering to willingly inflict a 
 moment's pain on any living being. 
 
 "You must be mistaken, cher mon- 
 sieur" she repeated softly. 
 
 " But I tell you there is no mistake," 
 he said in a louder tone, and trying to 
 raise himself. 
 
 She was saved the embarrassment of 
 a reply which might have further 
 taxed he-r conflicting sense of honor 
 by a ring at the door. It was Brun ar- 
 riving for the second time that day, and 
 on opening to him she informed him in 
 a word of the sick man's present preoc- 
 cupation, which he naturally set down 
 to some passing delusion arising from 
 weakness and fever. His course, know-
 
 fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 203 
 
 ing as he did absolutely nothing of the 
 real facts of the case, was so refreshingly 
 simple that poor Soeur Anne found her- 
 self envying him with all her heart. 
 
 Retold Lanthony point-blank that he 
 was talking nonsense, that such fancies 
 were an inevitable part of his illness, 
 and that he was a lucky dog to have 
 such pleasant phantoms hanging about 
 his sick-bed most people, he said, went 
 in for less attractive visitants. " But 
 now," he went on, " we must devote 
 ourselves to graver matters than dream- 
 ing about fair ladies. They won't 
 help you to get well, and what I want 
 is to see you up and about again." 
 
 So he prescribed absolute quiet, and 
 implicit obedience to Soeur Anne, and 
 went his way to those who had more 
 need of his presence. 
 
 When Brun had gone Lanthony 
 turned hopelessly restive ; he refused to 
 swallow the medicine which Sceur Anne 
 implored him to take, he vowed every 
 one was in league to deceive him ; and 
 he would have started then and there 
 on a voyage of discovery round his 
 rooms, but that he was forced to con- 
 fess, with tears in his eyes, that even 
 that little journey was far beyond his
 
 204 3be flaw in tbe /fcnrblc. 
 
 powers. But he declined to accept 
 Soeur Anne's assurances that there 
 neither was, nor had been, any one 
 there besides herself and the doctors, 
 and this morning M. Carrolin, who was 
 coming again in the afternoon. Well, 
 he wished Carrolin would come he at 
 any rate did not tell lies or torment peo- 
 ple. At this graceless remark Soeur 
 Anne's eyes, too, filled with tears, but 
 he was too excited to notice them. 
 
 She was on the point of sending 
 word to Carrolin to hasten his coming, 
 when he arrived. 
 
 Soeur Anne told him of Lanthony's 
 condition in the short passage from the 
 outer door to the sick-room, and the 
 moment he appeared his friend burst 
 out into a breathless, excited account 
 about his visitor of the night before, 
 and of the cabal between Soeur Anne 
 and Brun to make him believe it was 
 all a dream. 
 
 " I believe she's in the next room 
 now ; I'd go and see myself, only I 
 can't I'm so cursedly weak ; but, you 
 go, Leon, like a good fellow. I'll be- 
 lieve you I'll " 
 
 And here he fell back exhausted on 
 his pillows.
 
 Cbe flaw in tbc /Barbie. 205 
 
 Carrolin stood soothingly pressing his 
 hand, doubtful what to say, when Lan- 
 thony roused himself again and said, 
 
 " Here, bend your head down, Lon, 
 I'll tell you. You will never let it pass 
 your lips, I know. Closer so." And 
 then he whispered eagerly : " It was 
 Madeleine, Leon, Madeleine herself 
 she was here and she told me well 
 oh ! she told me a lot of things," he 
 wound up feebly. 
 
 Carrolin's was a very simple nature, 
 little fitted for dealing with the com- 
 plexities of life, and it always seemed 
 to him that the plainest way out of a 
 difficulty was to tell the truth as far 
 as he knew it. So he applied his gen- 
 eral rule to this particular instance. 
 
 " But, Paul, I saw her myself only a 
 few hours since at her own house." 
 
 And by one of those strange freaks 
 of mental balance which defy scientific 
 explanation, this plain statement of 
 actual fact seemed to do more to quiet 
 Lanthony than the most elaborate 
 reasonings or repeated asseverations 
 could have done. 
 
 What a fool he was, he told himself $ 
 of course she had returried to her own 
 house. How could she have stayed
 
 '206 *lbe IFlaw in tbe 
 
 'here, with doctors coming and going, 
 'and Heaven knows who besides? It 
 'was only right and proper that she 
 Should have gone, he mentally reiter- 
 ated, but she might have left some 
 word or message for him to cheer him 
 when he woke. But, bah ! what need 
 'was there of further words between 
 them? Last night she had told him 
 all there was to know; there was noth- 
 ing to add to it, and nothing could 
 take it away. She could not now be 
 with him ; of course not he saw that 
 and she had gone to wait for him till 
 he should be able to go and seek her, 
 and then ah ! then ! So he meekly 
 ' took his medicine, begged Sceur Anne's 
 pardon with such a winning air of con- 
 trition that it did more to unnerve her 
 than all his hard words had done, and 
 with his hand held in her two withered 
 ^ones, and his good friend by his bed, 
 he fell once more asleep. 
 
 There was no recurrence of the rest- 
 lessness which the three kindly watch- 
 ers over his well-being looked for and 
 dreaded. His whole energy was ab- 
 sorbed in fitting himself, by an unswerv- 
 ing obedience to the dreary regime of 
 Convalescence, for the time when he
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Garble. 207- 
 
 should at length be able to go forth 
 and meet the woman he loved. He 
 did everything he was told, ate, drank, 
 slept, according to the rules prescribed 
 for him, and even (and this was the 
 hardest effort for him, and the least 
 explainable wonder to those about him) 
 refrained from all forbidden exertion. 
 He was so intent upon getting on, 
 that he tacitly admitted the wisdom of 
 that hard saying, " the more haste the 
 worse speed," and was content to bide 
 his time with apparent patience. He 
 never changed his idea with regard to 
 Madeleine's absence and silence, only, 
 as the slow tale of days crawled past, 
 he allowed himself the satisfaction of 
 sending her a message a few scrawled 
 pencil-lines which all the world might 
 have read, and which he begged Carro- 
 lin to take to her. That little note was 
 destined to remain for ever unan- 
 swered. He had asked for no reply ; 
 and day by day Carrolin entered dread- 
 ing some question which would be 
 hard to satisfy. The question never 
 came, but Carrolin felt with a pang, as 
 the other's eyes scanned his face with a- 
 mute eagerness, that such restraintof si- 
 lence must be hard indeed to his friend.
 
 fflaw in tbe dfcarble. 
 
 Both Brun and Carrolin were sur- 
 prised and delighted with Lanthony 's 
 ready acquiescence in what was decided 
 to be best for him, and held it to be, in 
 itself, a sign of more rapid progress 
 towards health than they had ventured 
 to hope for. Only Sceur Anne, who 
 was more learned in the usual ups and 
 downs of convalescence, shook her old 
 head with a sense of misgiving. She 
 would have been puzzled to find a 
 tangible excuse for her gloomy fore- 
 bodings, but instinct is independent of 
 reason, and shots in the dark some- 
 times strike true. 
 
 For a good many days Lanthony had 
 just been lifted from his bed to a sofa, 
 where he lay all day, and in course of 
 time had been promoted to sitting up 
 for a few hours in an armchair ; and 
 one morning Brun told him it would be 
 a good thing for him " to try his legs a 
 little, and suggested his walking about 
 the room," aided by Sceur Anne's 
 friendly support. 
 
 In the course of his life Lanthony no 
 doubt made many journeys one of 
 which you will hear about by-and-by 
 but it is to be questioned whether he 
 ever undertook one that seemed so
 
 Cbc if law in tbe /Barbie. 209 
 
 difficult or so weary, as that little 
 journey round the two small rooms in 
 the Rue de la Valliere, supported on 
 one side by Sceur Anne and on the 
 other by Carrolin. 
 
 It did more to convince him of the 
 remorseless power of weakness, of the 
 inexorable bounds of mortal capacity, 
 than anything else ever did. Here was 
 he, longing with as keen a yearning as 
 ever prisoner felt, to arise and go forth 
 into the smiling world which lay out- 
 side those four walls, yet as little able 
 to use his liberty as though he were 
 shackled with chains and handcuffs, 
 and guarded by watchful gaolers and 
 dungeon bars. 
 
 At a different stage of his illness, 
 when there had been no motive for any 
 exertion, he had welcomed the feeble- 
 ness which made complete inaction 
 not only possible but blissful. Now 
 that returning life brought with it 
 common desires and common needs, 
 he bitterly cursed the limitation of his 
 physical powers. What a waste of 
 time it seemed ! One lives but once, 
 he repeated to himself with impotent 
 rage, and precious hours and days were 
 sliding past never to return, while with
 
 210 Gbe aflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 slow and painful steps he mounted the 
 hill which led from the gates of death 
 back again to life. 
 
 But everything comes at length to 
 him who waits, and at last the great 
 day dawned when Brun decided that 
 the moment had arrived for his patient 
 to go for a drive. Carrolin had for 
 some time dreaded, as well as wished 
 for, that day. Matters were compara- 
 tively simple while Lanthony was per- 
 force confined to his room ; but once 
 able to leave it, Carrolin knew that his 
 body would follow the road his heart had 
 been traveling so long, and he looked 
 forward with apprehension to the con- 
 sequences of that useless journey 
 for Madeleine Le Fagon had left Paris. 
 
 That morning, for the first time for 
 several weeks, Lanthony betrayed a 
 restless excitement. Carrolin was to 
 come for him at eleven ; he insisted on 
 Sceur Anne's getting him out of bed 
 and helping him to dress at nine, and 
 he further requested her to send for a 
 barber to shave him and trim his hair, 
 which had grown long and wild during 
 his illness. She thought it well to 
 humor him in what seemed to her a 
 very natural fancy, and the barber was 
 accordingly summoned.
 
 fflaw in tbe d&arble. 211 
 
 During that little voyage round the 
 room, of which I have told you, it 
 chanced that Lanthony had caught 
 sight of his own face in a mirror on the 
 wall, and he had shrunk back in amaze 
 before the haggard, grizzled travesty 
 of his former self, that he had there 
 beheld. It cooled his ardor consider- 
 ably as to hastening on the day of his 
 first outing, for he could not bear the 
 idea that Madeleine should see him like 
 that. He consoled himself by think- 
 ing that his altered appearance was in 
 great measure due to his bristling 
 beard and unkempt locks, and these at 
 any rate were easily remedied. When 
 the barber had finished his job and 
 departed, Soeur Anne tied on Lan- 
 thony's cravat for him, helped him into 
 his carefully brushed coat, and then, as 
 he sat in his armchair awaiting his 
 friend, she held a looking-glass before 
 him, smiling the while, that he might, 
 as she said, see " how fine " he looked 
 to-day ! 
 
 But the kind action apparently 
 failed in its intent, for he pushed away 
 the merciless reflector, and covering his 
 face with his hands, murmured to him- 
 self,
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 " Another delay ! Mon Dieu ! it can- 
 not be to-day, it cannot be to-day !" 
 
 Carrolin and Brun carried him down- 
 stairs and placed him in the carriage, 
 which slowly threaded a careful way 
 along the crowded streets towards the 
 Bois de Boulogne. Brun had laid spe- 
 cial stress on the necessity of getting 
 him outside into the fresher air which lay 
 beyond the town, and would hear none 
 of the objections which Carrolin urged. 
 The one which lay at the root of the 
 matter he did not feel authorized to 
 mention, but it was very present to his 
 mind. In order to reach the Bois by 
 the smoothest and most direct route, 
 they would have to pass up the 
 Avenue des Champs Elysees, within a 
 stone's throw of Madeleine's door. 
 He granted himself, however, the poor 
 consolation of believing that with a 
 man like Lanthony the proposed di- 
 rection of their drive mattered very 
 little, if but once he had made up his 
 mind to go to a particular place. 
 
 To his infinite relief and surprise, 
 however, as they passed the house 
 Lanthony took no notice, did not even 
 look up, and seemed entirely occupied 
 in pressing his hat further over his
 
 Cbc ff law in tbe Aarble. 213 
 
 eyes, and turning up the collar of his 
 coat, more with the air of a man who 
 desires to elude observation than of 
 one who wishes to see and be seen. 
 Alas ! poor friend, those eyes whose 
 serene scrutiny you fear with a humil- 
 ity born of love, are far enough distant 
 by this time. So all had gone well be- 
 yond expectation, Carrolin assured 
 Soeur Anne on their return, and Lan- 
 thony, though naturally very tired, 
 seemed none the worse for his venture. 
 
 " Souvent lanuit porte conseil" 
 though not always of the wisest or 
 most desirable kind. As Lanthony lay 
 awake that night, listening to the 
 clock ticking, and watching the slender 
 flicker of the night-light, he felt half 
 ashamed of the feeble vanity which 
 had led him to doubt the love of the 
 woman he loved. His mind was made 
 up he would waste no more time in 
 fruitless and wearying delay ; to-mor- 
 row he would go to her. What differ- 
 ence could it make to that supreme 
 and gracious tenderness if he were 
 maimed, or halt, or blind ? 
 
 " I love you, I love you," she had 
 said ; and should he doubt the power 
 and reality of that love which had
 
 214 tlbe fflaw in tbe flbarbte, 
 
 snatched him back from the jaws of 
 death ? Besides, he was not always 
 going to be like this a wretched blot 
 in a world of light. She who had al- 
 ready worked one miracle, would per- 
 form the far lesser one of restoring him 
 to health and strength again, and with 
 the hope of her promise in his heart, 
 he would live to do great things. 
 
 Next day Carrolin came with a 
 lighter heart to take his friend out 
 again. 
 
 '" Ce nest que le premier pas qui 
 cotite" he said gaily, as he mounted 
 the stairs. But he counted without 
 that improbability which his compa- 
 triots tell us is the only certainty. All 
 went smoothly as on the former occa- 
 sion, till suddenly as they were passing 
 Madeleine's gate, Lanthony called out 
 to the driver, 
 
 "No. 25, on the left!" 
 
 " Stop," shouted Carrolin to the 
 coachman, who had already turned his 
 horse's head ; and he had perforce to 
 wait until a huge railway-van, laden 
 with packing-cases, made its slow way 
 out of the gate. 
 
 " Paul," gasped poor Carrolin, " it is 
 no use she is not there."
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 215 
 
 "At St. Cloud then?" asked Lan- 
 thony. Carrolin shook his head. 
 
 " She she has left Paris." 
 
 " Seeing is believing," said Lanthony 
 calmly, though his face was deathly 
 pale. " I wish to see for myself." 
 
 Their carriage made its way to the 
 door, where a porter in shirt-sleeves 
 came out to answer their inquiries. 
 
 " Madame has left town ? " 
 
 " Certainly, sir," said the man with 
 an air of puzzled surprise at such ex- 
 traordinary ignorance ; "she left three 
 weeks ago for St. Petersburg." 
 
 Lanthony was silent for a moment ; 
 then he said, getting out of the car- 
 riage, 
 
 " I should like to go upstairs." 
 
 As the porter looked hesitatingly at 
 Carrolin, a short, stout, over-dressed 
 man appeared in the doorway, and 
 after a few words of explanation from 
 Carrolin, said with a strong American 
 accent, 
 
 " Why, certainly, anywhere you 
 please. You'll find it all in sad disor- 
 der sale, you know, and all that, and 
 I haven't had time to fix up my furni- 
 ture and things yet. But it's a mag- 
 nificent house, sir, yes, and I have
 
 2i 6 Cbc jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 gained by the departure which all 
 Purriss ^plores." 
 
 Lanthony thanked him, and, turn- 
 ing to his friend, said wearily, 
 
 " I am tired, Carrolin, take me 
 home ; " and they drove off, leaving the 
 affable American not a little amazed at 
 their abrupt departure. 
 
 The homeward drive was got through 
 in perfect silence. Soeur Anne ex- 
 pressed her surprise at their returning 
 so early, and hoped nothing had gone 
 wrong ; and Lanthony reassured her 
 by saying, 
 
 " Oh ! no; but I get so soon tired." 
 
 He was helped off with his hat and 
 coat, and settled on the sofa, and there 
 he lay so unnaturally still and silent 
 that Carrolin found himself wishing for 
 the outburst which he had dreaded. 
 It did not come, however, and as Lan- 
 thony, lying with closed eyes, seemed 
 to have sunk into settled quiet, he took 
 his leave. Lanthony meanwhile was 
 rapidly summing up the situation in 
 his mind. There was some mistake 
 somewhere, what, he could not tell, 
 but it must be cleared up. She had 
 gone to St. Petersburg ; well, he would 
 follow her there he would follow her
 
 be if taw in tbe fflarble. 217 
 
 across the world, if necessary and 
 when they met all misunderstanding 
 would be at an end. He would go to 
 Vienna and buy back the Circe from 
 that beast Hatz, (for he had now been 
 informed of that transaction), and they 
 three, Madeleine, he, and the Circe, 
 would all come back together and 
 live happy ever after. It was all right, 
 he told himself, as he glanced at the 
 table, which was still covered with 
 proposals from dealers, applications for 
 permission to reproduce his last and 
 all his other work, congratulatory let- 
 ters, all the sundry petty signs of the 
 success which had suddenly come to 
 him. And as for the happiness which 
 had, as suddenly, befallen him, if there 
 was no tangible evidence of that before 
 his eyes, he needed none, for his own ex- 
 istence seemed to him an unanswerable 
 proof. He had been dying, and " on ne 
 revient pas de si loin pour peu de chose" 
 
 Only, when they were alone, with 
 most surprising inconsistency, he laid 
 his head upon Sceur Anne's rough 
 serge breast and cried like a little child. 
 
 This lonely old saint, who had never 
 had a child, was yet one of the mothers 
 of the world, and with an inborn in-
 
 218 Gbe JFlaw (n tbe jfflbarble. 
 
 stinct she soothed and comforted him 
 as though she had won the secret of 
 motherhood through the common 
 course of its woes and joys. Soeur 
 Anne never asked questions, but as 
 she tenderly stroked his poor cropped, 
 grizzled head, she mumured softly, 
 
 " Ah ! my poor, poor boy death is 
 terrible but life is hard. God in his 
 mercy help and watch over us." 
 
 She was a very womanly woman, 
 was Sceur Anne, yet in this moment 
 of another's distress she forgot to 
 triumph at the fulfillment of her own 
 forebodings. 
 
 " I told you so," was, even to her- 
 self, an unknown phrase in her vocab- 
 ulary. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Nature cannot withstand certain 
 strains, and Lanthony had a relapse 
 which for many long weeks retarded 
 the accomplishment of his intended 
 journey. At length, however, he was 
 free to go. The last day he was in 
 Paris he drove down to St. Cloud to 
 pay a visit to Madeleine's empty villa. 
 
 The unplucked roses were all 
 a-bloom in the deserted garden, and ran 
 riot over the outer railings, on one of
 
 fflaw in tbe dBarble. 219 
 
 which high up was hung a placard 
 with the following inscription : " A 
 loner ou h vendre. S'adresser h M. 
 AlpJionse Guilbert, Rue des Petits 
 Ptres, No. 28" 
 
 He rang, and was admitted by a 
 slatternly woman who, in answer to 
 his inquiry as to whether he could see 
 the place, readily admitted him. She 
 proceeded to the house, expatiating to 
 an imaginary listener on its many ad- 
 vantages, as she unbarred the long- 
 closed shutters and let a flood of sun- 
 light into the silent rooms. Lanthony, 
 however, did not get beyond the gar- 
 den, and of all the unheeded wealth 
 of sweetness there he claimed for him- 
 self only one tiny sprig of sweet-smell- 
 ing geranium. He was no intending 
 purchaser, he informed the voluble 
 caretaker the place was altogether 
 beyond his means. But he left joy be- 
 hind him in the shape of a golden fee. 
 
 Inanimate things often speak to us 
 with resistless voices, and as he drove 
 back to Paris he felt with a chilling 
 intuition that the past was past in- 
 deed. And the future? Ah! well, 
 the future, as Sceur Anne would say, 
 was the secret of God.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE night train steamed slowly out 
 of the central station of St. Peters- 
 burg on its way to the south, bumping 
 and clanking over crossings and turn- 
 ing plates, and announcing its de- 
 parture by a long-drawn, brain-pierc- 
 ing whistle ending in an abrupt 
 shriek. 
 
 Lanthony sat in the corner of an 
 empty compartment, staring out of the 
 window as the vanishing lights of the 
 town whirled backwards, and were suc- 
 ceeded in their turn by the black 
 silhouettes of flying trees, which, in 
 course of time, gave place to wide, 
 trackless plains stretching away into 
 infinite darkness. Here and there, at 
 long intervals, the middle distance was 
 dotted with the white uncertain lights
 
 (Tbe fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 221 
 
 of some scattered hamlet, outside 
 which the tall crosses of a cemetery 
 stretched their arms to the dome of 
 sky above, as though in mute despair- 
 ing appeal ; and then nothing again 
 was to be seen but the endless monot- 
 ony of the limitless plain. 
 
 The object of the slow patience of 
 his months of convalescence was ac- 
 complished : he had made the journey 
 across Europe only to find it fruitless, 
 for Madeleine Le Fagon had already 
 left St. Petersburg for Vienna. Once 
 able to start, he had carried through 
 his plan with a feverish impatience 
 which knew of no fatigue and recog- 
 nized no obstacles; and day and night 
 he had traveled without stopping until 
 he had reached his destination, only, 
 as I have said, to find her gone. And 
 twelve hours later he had started 
 again, this time for Vienna. 
 
 Whether it was that the long, lonely 
 hours of travel had forced unwilling 
 reflection upon him, or that extreme 
 fatigue had at last asserted its power 
 with resistless force, or through some 
 indefinite combination of the two, I 
 cannot say; but now he found himself 
 wondering why he had ever under-
 
 222 Woe jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 taken the journey at all. At best it 
 was but a fool's errand, he told him- 
 self, for, even had he seen the person 
 he had come to seek, she could have 
 told him no more than he knew al- 
 ready. Her abrupt departure, her 
 long-continued silence, (once he was 
 able to think clearly about them,) left 
 him no illusions. Either she had 
 changed her mind all women change 
 their minds, and she, people said, more 
 frequently than most or Sceur Anne 
 and the rest were right (though he still 
 fought desperately in his inmost self 
 against such conclusion) and what he 
 had seen and heard was but the de- 
 lusion of a brain impotent through 
 sickness, the mere vision of a fading 
 dream. She would confirm the others, 
 if asked about it, and he felt he could 
 not hold out against such seal of con- 
 firmation. He had now, he said to 
 himself, rather not see her, for if he 
 saw her he should ask her, and he 
 dreaded the absolute knowledge which 
 would thus be forced upon him. Why 
 then was he going to Vienna ? Not to 
 see her, but to look once again upon 
 her likeness that he had made, and, if 
 possible, buy it back for himself.
 
 Cbe jflaw in tbc Garble. 223 
 
 That, at any rate, was real, tangible, 
 and lasting. 
 
 Then gradually he fell to thinking of 
 the other rare journeys he had made 
 during his life; of that first journey to 
 Liege, and his return from it ; of that 
 later one to Paris, and all his hopes and 
 plans for his future career ; of that fair 
 spring morning when he had started 
 on a journey to Paradise, and lost his 
 way : and musing over these shadows 
 of a vanished past he fell asleep. 
 
 When he awoke again it was broad 
 daylight, and he was aroused by the 
 sound and bustle of a large station. 
 He got out of the carriage, feeling 
 chilled and dazed, his limbs cramped 
 by his long sleep in a sitting posture. 
 There was a babel of tongues about 
 him, and strange-looking men in long 
 coats and caps walked up and down 
 the platform, smoking cigarettes, or 
 swarmed about the steaming samovars. 
 The guard sounded his whistle, and 
 the motley crowd rushed to resume 
 their seats in the train. The rest of 
 his journey was for Lanthony a sort of 
 dream between sleeping and waking ; 
 he took no conscious note of the 
 things or people that passed before his
 
 224 Gbe df law in tbe Garble, 
 
 eyes, and when at length he reached 
 Vienna, it seemed to him that he had 
 been traveling in that train for years. 
 
 Arrived at his hotel, he got rid of the 
 dust and disorder of travel, made a 
 hurried breakfast, and dispatched a 
 note to Baron Hatz at the address Cail- 
 loudoux had given him, stating that 
 he had come to Vienna with the ex- 
 press purpose of negotiating terms for 
 the acquirement of his " Circe," and 
 begging the favor of an early interview. 
 In half an hour the messenger returned, 
 with a polite reply from the Baron's 
 secretary, which stated that Baron 
 Hatz was, for the moment, absent from 
 Vienna ; and as regarded the proposed 
 negotiations about M. Lanthony's 
 "Circe," that the statue was no longer 
 in the Baron's possession, having been 
 sold by him some weeks ago to Madame 
 Le Fagon, who was at present residing 
 at an address which the writer gave. 
 
 Lanthony hesitated a moment, then 
 went downstairs, and hailing a passing 
 cab drove to the house to which the 
 note had directed him. On inquiry 
 from the porter he learned that Madame 
 was out, but that she would probably 
 be at home between two and three.
 
 Jlaw in tbe Garble. 225 
 
 How he passed the time that inter- 
 vened he never knew, but he felt 
 strangely calm, his one preoccupation 
 being as to whether Madeleine would 
 be open to an offer about her newly 
 acquired possession. Do what he 
 would, he could think of nothing else 
 he always was a man entirely absorbed 
 by one idea, and while it lasted incap- 
 able of considering any other. At half- 
 past two he went again to her house. 
 This time there was a carriage stand- 
 ing at the door, and the porter informed 
 him Madame had that moment come in. 
 As Lanthony made his way up he 
 was conscious that a figure was slowly 
 preceding him a flight of stairs ahead, 
 the figure of a woman, and as he recog- 
 nized it his heart stood still. In a few 
 steps he overtook her, and she, hearing 
 the footfall behind her, turned sud- 
 denly round. Lanthony uncovered his 
 head, and in the moment which inter- 
 vened before either spoke he read in her 
 eyes, as in a book, the change the 
 past few months had wrought in him. 
 She was not given to feeling, still less 
 to showing, emotion of any kind, but 
 taken thus unawares her thought 
 printed itself in one vivid flash on her
 
 226 Gbe fflaw In tbe /l&arble. 
 
 face, and all the shock of her pitying 
 surprise was as evident to the man 
 who stood before her as though she 
 had given it speech. " Was this hag- 
 gard, grizzled, sunken-eyed being the 
 same as the man in the boat who had 
 spoken beautiful allegories about im- 
 possible happiness but such a short 
 while ago ? Was could this apparition 
 be one and the same with the young, 
 eager, almost beautiful face she remem- 
 bered ? " Only for a moment -and 
 then she averted her eyes, for she had 
 an instinctive shrinking from every- 
 thing that reminded her of suffering, 
 infirmity, or decay. He was the first 
 to speak, and his voice was as altered 
 as the rest, as he said in hoarse, unnat- 
 ural tones, 
 
 " I have come to see my statue." 
 
 By this time she had quite recovered 
 herself, and it was in her usual manner, 
 and with her accustomed smile, that 
 she answered, 
 
 " She has changed hands, but she 
 is herself unchanged ; come and see." 
 
 She led the way through several 
 rooms to a small alcove, or recess, at 
 the end of a short gallery, and there 
 against a curtain of dark greyish-blue
 
 Cbc jfUuv in tbc Garble. 227 
 
 velvet sat the " Circe." Madeleine 
 pushed fonvard a chair for him with 
 much the same careful solicitude that 
 one betrays for the comfort of some 
 old or very feeble person. But he re- 
 mained standing. He looked for a 
 few seconds in silence at the statue, 
 then he dropped his eyes to the ground, 
 and nervously toying with a crystal ball 
 which lay on a low table beside him, 
 said, 
 
 " I came to Vienna expressly to see 
 this statue to see it, and, if possible, 
 to acquire it. It it cost me a great 
 deal of time and labor, and it was sold 
 without my knowledge when when I 
 was ill. I was at the time unable to 
 manage my own affairs, and Carrolin, 
 who was acting for me, made the best 
 bargain he could. But I am now anx- 
 ious to repurchase, if if that can be 
 arranged." 
 
 He spoke these words in the dull, 
 even tone of one who is repeating a 
 lesson learned by rote. And then he 
 stood and awaited her reply. It was 
 not long in coming. If she now felt 
 surprise, she did not allow it to appear, 
 and if he expected a denial of his re- 
 quest, his apprehension was at fault.
 
 fflaw in tbe /Barbie. 
 
 " Your ' Circe ' must, as you say," she 
 said slowly, " have cost you a great 
 deal. And I am glad to be able to 
 facilitate your wishes about her. But, 
 please, do not let there be any question 
 of buying and selling between you and 
 me. I bought her for for a caprice, 
 and I am already tired of her. It is 
 rather wearisome, do you know," she 
 added, smiling, " to be constantly 
 brought face to face with oneself. 
 You will be doing me a favor by tak- 
 ing her off my hands." 
 
 " Name your own price, madame." 
 
 " I have already told you I do not 
 wish to sell it," she replied with a 
 shade of impatience, " and it is impos- 
 sible for me to put a valuation on a 
 thing which is, to me, valueless. I am 
 not given to asking favors, but I tell 
 you I shall be indebted to you if you 
 will accept this gift from me without 
 further question." 
 
 " This is purely a business transac- 
 tion, madame. I shall be obliged if 
 you will allow me to buy the statue. 
 I cannot accept it as a gift." 
 
 " As you will," she said with a little 
 shrug. 
 
 " I propose to offer the sum which I
 
 Jflaw in tbe /Garble. 229 
 
 received for her ;Soo it is all I can 
 afford, but it may not meet your 
 views." 
 
 " I shall be very well content to 
 part with her at that figure," she re- 
 plied imperturbably. 
 
 Paul asked for writing materials, 
 and sat down with trembling hands to 
 make out the cheque. She stood be- 
 hind him, a curious expression of 
 mocking triumph in her eyes. He did 
 not know it, but the transaction was 
 in some sense a gift after all, for she 
 had paid 2000 to Hatz. 
 
 " I am leaving Vienna as soon as 
 possible, madame," he said, rising and 
 handing her the cheque ; " I should be 
 glad to have the statue removed and 
 packed as soon as may be." 
 
 "When you will," she assented 
 laconically. 
 
 The object of his visit was attained 
 yet still he lingered, and for the first 
 time during their interview his eyes 
 rested on her face. She was un- 
 changed as peerlessly, matchlessly 
 beautiful as ever ; could that face, he 
 wondered to himself, ever grow old? 
 The past came back with a rush, and 
 in a moment he found himself saying
 
 230 abe fflaw tn tbe /foarble. 
 
 the very thing he had inwardly sworn 
 should not pass his lips. 
 
 "I told you just now," he began, 
 " that I had been lately very ill. I 
 was ill for weeks, months, I believe, 
 and one night they thought I was 
 dying. That night I had a dream a 
 very curious dream I should like, 
 before I go, to tell it to you." 
 
 Her face betrayed no change of 
 expression, as she nodded a permissive 
 acquiescence. 
 
 " I dreamed that the only woman I 
 have ever loved, or ever shall love, the 
 woman who was all the world to me, 
 came and leaned over me as I lay there 
 dying, and told me she loved me. ' I 
 love you, I love you, I love you,' she 
 said, and kissed me. I did not die 
 those words, that kiss conquered death. 
 But when I came back to life she was 
 gone, and those about me told me it 
 was only the delusion of sickness." 
 
 There was perfect silence for a mo- 
 ment or two, and then she said in a 
 low, even voice, 
 
 " It was, as you say, a very curious 
 dream." 
 
 " Madeleine," he asked eagerly, 
 " when did you leave Paris ? "
 
 fflaw in tbe Garble. 231 
 
 "On the 1 5th of May," she replied, 
 looking him straight in the eyes ; 
 "and, question for question, what was 
 the date of your wonderful dream ? " 
 
 He passed his hand wearily over 
 his brow in a desperate effort to 
 remember, and then said confusedly, 
 
 " I I cannot recollect I lost all 
 count of time those days." 
 
 Again a pause, and then he turned 
 all the pleading misery of his face to 
 her in an agony of appeal. 
 
 " Madeleine," he implored, " I ask 
 nothing of you for the future I will 
 go away and never seek to see you 
 again. But before I go, tell me that 
 that at least of all the past was no 
 delusion. Let that be true, if every- 
 thing else in the world is a lie. I will 
 not ask you why you came, nor why 
 you left me ; only say my dream was 
 no dream." 
 
 She looked at him with a reluctant 
 pity in those wonderful eyes, and lay- 
 ing her hand gently on his arm, she 
 said in a tone of kindly commisera- 
 tion, 
 
 " Alas ! my friend, what would you 
 have me say ? They were right, those 
 others, in what they told you. Your
 
 232 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 dream was but a dream ; it could not 
 be otherwise and it is better so." 
 
 He shook off her hand as though it 
 stung him, and seemed about to speak, 
 but a servant entering at that moment, 
 he checked himself. 
 
 " Well our business is finished, is 
 it not ? " she said, holding out her 
 hand to him in smiling dismissal 
 almost the same words she had used 
 one memorable day at the studio. 
 " But we shall perhaps meet again 
 before you go ? " 
 
 Her question remained unanswered, 
 but she did not need a reply : some 
 questions answer themselves.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ONE sultry morning in the beginning 
 of September, Lanthony, who had re- 
 turned to Paris, was occupied in his 
 studio in hanging up on the now other- 
 wise bare walls a marble fragment of 
 remarkable beauty. It represented a 
 woman's arm, or rather, such part of it 
 as, starting a little below the shoulder, 
 lies between that and the wrist. The 
 hand was missing, and at either end 
 the fragment was jagged and uneven, as 
 though it had been broken off from the 
 figure to which it had belonged by 
 rough and ill-directed blows. He was 
 slow in satisfying himself as to the exact 
 disposition of his treasure ; he tried it 
 first against one wall and then against 
 another, and having finally selected 
 what seemed to him the most favorable
 
 234 Gbe 3f law in tbe flbarble. 
 
 spot, immediately above the model- 
 platform which stood facing the north 
 window, he took his measurements and 
 proceeded to knock in the long, curved 
 staples which were to support the mar- 
 ble. That fragment was all that now 
 remained in recognizable entity of the 
 famous statue of " Circe " of which all 
 the world had been talking a few 
 months before, and which was Lan- 
 thony's first and last essay on lines of 
 which he was the sole discoverer. In 
 his later works, which were neither 
 better nor worse than those of sundry 
 of his contemporaries, he returned to 
 the worship of his old ideals, and re- 
 gaining the favor of Plon and his school, 
 became in the end "plus royalist e que 
 le Rot" 
 
 When he came back to Paris he 
 brought the statue with him, and had 
 the case containing it placed in an 
 empty cellar opening out of the court 
 belonging to the house in the Rue de 
 la Valliere. Much the same crowd 
 collected to welcome the " Circe" back 
 as had assembled to bid her ban voyage 
 on her departure in the earlier part of 
 the year the porter and his wife, the 
 baker's man with his flat tray on his
 
 fflaw in tbe flbarble. 235 
 
 head, an idler or two, and a selection 
 of little boys who on this, as on the 
 former occasion, seemed to regard the 
 proceedings as a show got up for their 
 especial benefit. The next day Lan- 
 thony got a carpenter to prise open 
 the case or crate which contained the 
 statue, and applied himself unaided to 
 carry out what remained to be accom- 
 plished of his purpose. He locked 
 himself into the cellar, so as to be free 
 from intrusion, took off his coat, rolled 
 up his shirt-sleeves, and, taking up a 
 heavy stone-mason's hammer with 
 which he had provided himself, began 
 his work of destruction. He went at it 
 with characteristic energy, applying as 
 much apparent force of attention to ob- 
 literating and annihilating his creation, 
 as he had expended in fashioning and 
 moulding it into careful loveliness. 
 With this difference, however, that 
 whereas the making of this thing of 
 beauty had been the outcome of slow 
 months of patient thought and consec- 
 utive labor, the marring of it was but 
 the swift result of a frenzied impulse of 
 tumultuous rage. 
 
 Lanthony struck right and left at the 
 marble figure before him, raining blows
 
 236 Gbe jflaw in tbc /Bbacble. 
 
 of blind fury, now upon the smiling 
 mouth, now upon the serene eyes, on 
 the stately column of the proud throat, 
 on the lissom lines and suave propor- 
 tions in which his brain had triumphed 
 and his heart delighted. Never again, 
 he repeated, should the eye of man 
 gaze upon that apotheosis of fair false- 
 ness, that monument of disillusion and 
 despair. And as he struck, a mad pas- 
 sion of revenge arose in his tortured 
 senses, and it seemed as if each blow 
 carried a requital to the being whom 
 he so loved and so loathed. His self- 
 imposed labor was soon over, and 
 that which had been an artist's high- 
 est achievement and a world's wonder 
 and delight, lay shivered into irrecog- 
 nizable fragments at his feet. 
 
 He threw the hammer into the 
 chaotic heap of white chips, and lean- 
 ing against the wall wiped the sweat 
 from his brow, surveying the ruin he 
 had wrought with a grim smile. Sud- 
 denly his eye lit upon an intact piece 
 of marble which had fallen off at some 
 distance from the rest and lay a little 
 to his left. He moved towards it, and 
 found it to be the greater part of the 
 right arm. The hand on which the
 
 Gbe fflaw in tbe Garble. 237 
 
 cheek had leaned had perished with the 
 rest, but this fragment had by some 
 curious chance escaped the general 
 destruction. It must have flown off 
 unnoticed in the excitement of that 
 storm of blows it had saved itself, as 
 it were, and Lanthony, his mad passion 
 evaporated, felt that he had neither 
 the will nor the energy to recommence 
 his sterile vengeance in cold blood. 
 
 He picked it up, and flicking off the 
 dust which besmirched it, carried it 
 away with him and slowly mounted the 
 stairs to his studio. 
 
 Carrolin came in just as he had fin- 
 ished fixing it in its position on the 
 wall. Lanthony, looking over his 
 shoulder, nodded a greeting without 
 speaking. 
 
 " I heard you were back, Paul, and 
 came to wish you welcome." 
 
 " Yes I came back the day before 
 yesterday from Vienna, where I had 
 been to try and repurchase my statue 
 the ' Circe,' you remember." 
 
 "But, if I remember! Well, and 
 did you succeed?" 
 
 "Yes, I brought her back with 
 me." 
 
 It was not a subject that Carrolin
 
 238 Gbe fflaw in tbe /Bbarble. 
 
 would have ventured to touch upon, 
 but taking his friend's easy tone as a 
 sign that travel and change of scene 
 had worked unexpected wonders for 
 him, he continued, 
 
 " I congratulate you, old fellow ; and 
 where is she? When can I see her 
 again ? " 
 
 " She is here downstairs. Come 
 and see." 
 
 Lanthony led the way down the out- 
 side staircase which communicated be- 
 tween his studio and the court, and 
 crossing the yard, unlocked the cellar 
 and admitted his friend. 
 
 Carrolin stood spellbound on the 
 threshold, gazing with dazed and hor- 
 ror stricken eyes at the marble carnage 
 before him. Then a spasm of pain 
 passed over his kindly face, as a terrible 
 suspicion shot through his mind. To 
 Carrolin such wanton destruction of 
 artistic achievement seemed little less 
 than murder, and was only to be ac- 
 counted for in one way the mental 
 aberration of his poor friend, through 
 the bodily illness that he knew of, and 
 the other trouble at which he guessed. 
 His horror at the thought kept him 
 tongue-tied and rooted to the spot.
 
 jflaw in tbe dfcarble. 239 
 
 Then for his was a practical as well as 
 a compassionate nature he reflected 
 that the really important point now 
 was that the whole affair should be 
 kept secret ; for, he argued, madness is 
 not always incurable, but the stigma 
 which it carries is never forgotten by 
 the world that frames and pronounces 
 upon a man's career. As a matter of 
 fact, he was mistaken in his assump- 
 tion, for Lanthony had no better ex- 
 cuse for this act of incomparable folly 
 than has any one who helplessly yields 
 to a movement of irrational anger. 
 But, believing what he did, Carrolin 
 loyally kept to himself what he had 
 seen until, some years later, death for 
 ever sealed his lips. 
 
 " That statue, from first to last," 
 said Lanthony, breaking the silence, 
 " cost me a good deal in more ways 
 than one." 
 
 He paused, and 
 
 "The flaw in the marble?" hazarded 
 Carrolin tentatively. 
 
 " The flaw in the marble ? " echoed 
 the other mechanically ; and then with 
 a bitter emphasis which his friend did 
 not wholly understand, " Yes, the flaw 
 in the marble," he repeated.
 
 240 abe jflaw in tbe Garble. 
 
 Carrolin laid his hand gently on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Paul, old fellow, let us go upstairs. 
 I want to talk to you." 
 
 Lanthony relocked the door, and 
 they went up together to the studio. 
 Carrolin sat down in a chair facing the 
 south wall, and absently lighted a 
 cigarette. 
 
 " I ought to have destroyed that 
 too," said Lanthony, following the 
 direction of his friend's eyes, " but it 
 saved itself by some strange chance, 
 and I well, I hadn't the heart to 
 break it up afterwards." 
 
 Carrolin sat for a moment or two, 
 silently remembering many things. 
 Then he said very kindly, 
 
 " Ah ! Paul, it was but ill wisdom to 
 destroy such a reality as that for a 
 dream." 
 
 " Perhaps," replied the other with a 
 curious smile ; but, as his eyes rested 
 on the fragment on the wall, he knew 
 that his " dream " had been no dream. 
 
 Ah ! le pauvre ami ! 
 
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 Qtbers in preparation. 
 
 For Sale by all Booksellers. 
 
 ffrefcerfcfc H. Stofees Company, 
 
 publishers, IRcw

 
 BMRY FACIUTV 
 
 A 000 088 679 6