FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE
 
 FAIRFAX AND 
 HIS PRIDE 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIE VAN VORST 
 
 Author of "Big Tremaine," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1920, 
 BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED)
 
 TO 
 B. VAN VORST 
 
 IN MEMORY OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP 
 
 2133335
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 BOOK I 
 
 THE KINSMEN 
 
 CHAPTEK I 
 
 ONE bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New 
 York was a tranquil city, a young man stood at the South 
 Ferry waiting for the up-town horse car. With a few other 
 passengers he had just left the packet which had arrived 
 in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. 
 
 Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. 
 
 In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his 
 side on the snow rested his single valise. Before him 
 waited a red and yellow tram-car drawn by lean horses, 
 from whose backs the vapour rose on the frosty air. 
 Muffled to his ears, the driver beat together his hands in 
 their leather gloves; the conductor stamped his feet. The 
 traveller climbed into the car, lifting his big bag after him. 
 
 The cold was even more terrible to him than to the 
 conductor and driver. He had come from the South, 
 where he had left the roses and magnolias in bloom, and 
 the warmth of the country was in his blood. He dug 
 his feet into the straw covering the floor of the car, 
 buttoned his coat tight about his neck, pushed his hands 
 deep in his pockets and sat wondering at the numbing cold. 
 
 This, then, was the North ! 
 
 He watched with interest the few other passengers 
 board the little car: two fruit vendors and after them 
 were amiably lifted in great bunches of bananas. Antony 
 asked himself the question whether this new country 
 would be friendly to him, what would its spirit be toward 
 
 1
 
 2 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 him, and as he asked this question of the cold winter air 
 the city suddenly took reality and formed for him out of 
 his dreams. Would it be kind or cruel? The coming 
 days would answer: meanwhile he could wait. Some 
 places, like some people whom we meet, at once extend 
 to us a hand; there are some that even seem to offer an 
 embrace. Through the car blew a sudden icy blast and 
 New York's welcome to Fairfax was keen as a blow. 
 There was an actual physical affront in this wind that 
 struck him in the face. 
 
 Suppose the elements were an indication of what the 
 rest would be? But no that was ridiculous! There 
 would be certainly warm interiors behind the snow- 
 fretted panes of the windows in the houses that lined 
 the streets on either side. There would be warm and 
 cordial hearts to welcome him somewhere. There would 
 be understanding of heart, indulgence for youth. He 
 would find open doors for all his ambitions, spurs to his 
 integrity and effort. He would know how to make use 
 of these ways and means of progress. For years he had 
 dreamed of the galleries of pictures and of the museum. 
 It was from this wonderful city whose wideness had the 
 intense outreach of the unknown that Fairfax had elected 
 to step into the world. 
 
 New York was to be his threshold. There was no 
 limit to what he intended to do in his special field of work. 
 From his boyhood he had told himself that he would 
 become great. He was too young to have discovered 
 the traitors that hide in the brain and the emptiness of 
 the deepest tears. He was a pioneer and had the faith of 
 the pioneer. According to him everything was real, the 
 beauty of form was enchanting, all hearts were true, and 
 all roads led to fame. His short life focused now at this 
 hour. 
 
 Life is a series of successive stages to which point of 
 culmination a man brings all he has of the past and all 
 his hopes. All along the road these blessed visions crowd, 
 fulminate and form as it were torches, and these lights 
 mark the road for the traveller. Now all Antony's life 
 came to a point in this hour. He had longed to go to 
 New York from the day when in New Orleans he had com- 
 pleted his first bust. He had moulded from the soft clay 
 on the banks of the levees the head of a famous general,
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 3 
 
 who had later become president. He was only twelve years 
 old then, but his little work bore all the indications of 
 genius. 
 
 He was an artist from the ends of the slender hands 
 to the centre of the sensitive heart. The childlikeness, 
 the beauty of his nature revealed it in everything he did; 
 and he was only twenty-two years old. 
 
 As he sat in the horse car, his heart full of hope, his 
 brain teeming with the ideal, he was an interesting figure 
 to watch, and a fine old gentleman on his way up town 
 was struck by the brilliancy, the aspect of the fellow 
 passenger. He studied the young fellow from behind his 
 evening paper, but the old gentleman could not make up 
 his mind what the young man was. Aside from the 
 valise at his feet Antony had no other worldly goods, and 
 aside from the twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he had 
 no other money. There was nothing about him to suggest 
 the artistic type: broad-shouldered, muscular, he seemed 
 built for battles and feats of physical strength, but his 
 face was thoughtful for one so young. His eyes were clear. 
 " He looks," mused the gentleman, " like a man who has 
 come home after a very successful journey. I suspect the 
 young fellow is returning with something resembling the 
 story books' bag of gold." He humorously fancied even 
 that the treasure might be in the valise on the straw of 
 the car at the traveller's feet. 
 
 The car tinkled slowly through the cold. After a 
 long while, well above a street marked Fiftieth, its road 
 appeared to lie in the country. There were vacant lots 
 on either side; there were low-roofed, ramshackle 
 shanties; there were stray goats here and there among the 
 rocks. Antony said to the conductor in a pleasant, 
 Southern voice: "You won't forget to let me off at 
 70th Street." He rose at the conductor's signal and the 
 ringing of the bell. The old gentleman, who was a canon 
 of the Church, saw as the young man rose that he was lame, 
 that he limped, that he wore a high, double-soled boot. 
 As Fairfax went out he lifted his hat with a courteous 
 " Good evening " to his only fellow passenger, for the 
 others had one by one left the car to go to their different 
 destinations. " Too bad," thought the canon to himself, 
 " Lame, by Jove ! With a smile like that a man can 
 win the world."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE little figure in the corner of the pink sofa had read 
 away the hours of the short winter afternoon curled up 
 in a ball, her soft red dress, her soft red cheeks, her soft 
 red lips vivid bits of colour in the lamplight. She had 
 read through the twilight, until the lamps came to help 
 her pretty eyes, and like a scholar of old over some 
 problem she bent above her fairy tale. The volume was 
 unwieldy, and she supported it on her knees. Close to 
 her side a little boy of six watched the absorbed face, 
 watched the lamp and the shadows of the lamp on the 
 pink walls of the room; watched his mother as she sat 
 sewing, but most devotedly of all he watched through his 
 half-dreaming lids his sister as she read her story. His 
 sister charmed him very much and terrified him not a 
 little ; she was so quick, so strong, so alive she rushed 
 him so. He loved his sister, she was his illustrated 
 library of fairy tales and wonderful plays, she was his 
 companion, his ruler, his dominator, and his best friend. 
 
 "Bella," he whispered at the second when she turned 
 the page and he thought he might venture to interrupt, 
 " Bella, wouldn't you read it to me ? " 
 
 The absorbed child made an impatient gesture, bent 
 her head lower and snuggled down into her feast. She 
 shook her mane of hair. 
 
 " Gardiner," his mother noticed the appeal, " when 
 will you learn to read for yourself? You are a big boy." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not so vewy big," his tone was indolent, 
 " I'm not so big as Bella. You said yesterday that you 
 bought me five-year-old clothes." 
 
 In the distance, above the noise of the wind, came 
 the tinkle of the car-bell. Gardiner silently wished, as 
 he heard the not unmusical sound, that the eternal, ugly 
 
 4
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 5 
 
 little cars, with the overworked horses, could be turned 
 into fairy chariots and this one, as it came ringing and 
 tinkling along, would stop at the front door and fetch . . . 
 A loud ring at the front door made the little boy spring 
 up. 
 
 His sister frowned and glanced up from her book. 
 " It isn't father ! " she flashed out at him. " He's got his 
 key. You needn't look scared yet, Gardiner. It is a 
 bundle or a beggar or something or other stupid. Don't 
 disturb." 
 
 However, the three of them listened, and in another 
 seotfftd the door of the sitting-room was opened by a 
 servant and, behind the maid, on the bare wood floor of 
 the stairs, there fell a heavy step and a light step, a light 
 step and a heavy step. Bella never forgot the first time 
 she heard those footfalls. 
 
 The lady at the table put her sewing down, and at 
 that moment, behind the servant, a young man came in, 
 a tall young man, holding out his hand and smiling a 
 wonderful and beautiful smile. 
 
 " Aunt Caroline. I'm Antony Fairfax from New 
 Orleans. I've just reached New York, and I came, of 
 course, at once to you." 
 
 Not very much later, as they all stood about the table 
 talking, Bella uncurled and once upon her feet, astonish- 
 ingly tall for twelve years old, stood by Fairfax's side, 
 while Gardiner, an old-fashioned little figure in queer 
 home-made clothes, flushed, delicate and timid, leaned on 
 his mother. The older woman had stopped sewing. 
 "With her work in her lap she was looking at the seventh 
 son of her beautiful sister of whom she had been gently, 
 mildly envious all her life. 
 
 Bella said brusquely : " You've got an awfully light 
 smile, Cousin Antony." 
 
 He laughed. " I suppose that comes from an awfully 
 light heart, little cousin ! " 
 
 " Bella," her mother frowned, " don't be personal. 
 You will learn not to mind her, Antony ; she is frightfully 
 spoiled." 
 
 The little girl threw back her hair. " And you've 
 got one light step, Cousin Antony, and one heavy step.
 
 No one ever came up our stairs like that before. How do 
 you do it ? " 
 
 The stranger's face clouded. He had been looking 
 at her with keen delight, and he was caught up short at 
 her words. He put out his deformed shoe. 
 
 " This is the heavy step/' 
 
 Bella's cheeks had been flushed with excitement, but 
 the dark red that rose at Fairfax's words made her look 
 like a little Indian. 
 
 "Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered. "I didn't 
 know." 
 
 Her cousin comforted her cheerfully. " That's all 
 right. I don't mind. I fell from a cherry tree when I 
 was a little chap and I've stumped about ever since." 
 
 His aunt's gentle voice, indifferent and soft, like 
 Gardiner's murmured 
 
 " Oh, don't listen to her, Antony, she's a spoiled, 
 inconsiderate little girl." 
 
 But Bella had drawn nearer the stranger. She leaned 
 on the table close to him and lifted her face in which her 
 eyes shone like stars. She had wounded him, and it 
 didn't seem to her generous little heart that she could 
 quite let it go. And under her breath she whispered 
 
 " But there's the light step, isn't there, Cousin Antony ? 
 And the smile the awfully light smile ? " 
 
 Fairfax laughed and leaned forward as though he would 
 catch her, but she had escaped from under his hand like 
 an elusive fairy, and when he next saw her she was back 
 in her corner with her book on her knees and her dark 
 hair covering her face.
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 HE talked with his aunt for a long while. Her grace and 
 dignity suggested his mother, but she was not so lovely 
 as the other woman, whose memory was always thrilling 
 to him. Fairfax ran eagerly on, on fire with his subject, 
 finally stopping himself with a laugh. 
 
 " I reckon I'm boring you to death, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 " Oh, no/' she breathed, " how can you say so ? How 
 proud she must be of you ! " 
 
 Downstairs in the hall he had left his valise and his 
 little hand satchel, with the snow melting on them. 
 He came from a household whose hospitality was as 
 large, as warm, as bright as the sun. He had made a 
 stormy passage by the packet Nore. His head was 
 beginning to whirl. From the sofa there was not a sign. 
 Bella read ardently, her hand pressing a lock of her dark 
 hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his eyes on his 
 cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, hand- 
 some young man. 
 
 " He's my relation," he said to himself. " He's one 
 of our family. I know he can tell stories, and he's a 
 traveller. He came in the fairy cars." 
 
 Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. " So 
 you will learn to model here," she murmured. " Now I 
 wonder who would be the best man ? " 
 
 And Fairfax responded quickly, " Cedersholm, auntie, 
 he's the only man." 
 
 " My husband," his aunt began to blush, " your uncle 
 knows Mr. Cedersholm in the Century Club, but I hardly 
 think . . ." 
 
 Antony threw up his bright head. " I have brought a 
 letter from the President to Cedersholm and several of 
 the little figures I have modelled."
 
 8 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "Ah, that will be better," and his aunt breathed with 
 relief. Mrs. Carew's mention of her husband came to 
 Antony like a sharp chill. Nothing that had been told 
 him of the New York banker who had married his gentle 
 aunt was calculated to inspire him with a sense of kinship. 
 It was as though a window had been opened into the 
 bright room. A slight noise at the door downstairs acted 
 like a current of alarm upon the family. The colour left 
 his aunt's cheeks, and little Gardiner exclaimed, " I hear 
 father's key." The child came over to his mother's side. 
 It seemed discourteous to Antony to suggest going just 
 as his uncle arrived, so he waited a moment in the strange 
 silence that fell over the group. In a few seconds Mr. 
 Carew came in and his wife presented. " My dear, this 
 is Antony Fairfax, my sister Bella's only child, you know. 
 You remember Bella, Henry." 
 
 A wave of red, which must have been vigorous in order 
 to sweep in and under the ruddy colour already in Carew's 
 cheeks, testified that he did remember the beautiful Mrs. 
 Fairfax. 
 
 " I remember her very well," he returned ; " is she as 
 handsome as ever? You have chosen a cold day to land 
 in the North. I presume you came by boat? We have 
 been two hours coming up town. The cars are blocked 
 by snow. It's ten degrees below zero to-night. I wish 
 you would see that ashes are poured on the front steps, 
 Caroline, at once." 
 
 The guest put out his hand. " I must be going. Good 
 
 night, Aunt Caroline good night, Gardiner. Good 
 
 night, sir." 
 
 Fairfax marked the ineffectuality in his aunt's face. It 
 was neither embarrassment nor shame, it was impotence. 
 Her expression was not appealing, but inadequate, and 
 the slender hand that she gave him melted in his like 
 the snow. There was no grasp there, no stimulus to go on. 
 He turned to the red figure of the huddled child in the 
 sofa corner. 
 
 " Good night, little cousin." 
 
 Bella dropped her book and sprang up. " Good night," 
 she cried ; " why, you're not going, Cousin Antony ? 
 
 And as the older woman had done she extended her 
 hand. It was only a small child's hand, but the essential
 
 was there. The same sex but with a different hand. It 
 did not melt in Antony's ; it lay, it clasped, lost in his big 
 palm. He felt, nevertheless, the vital little grasp, its 
 warmth and sweetness against his hand. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 Mr. Carew had passed out now that he had successfully 
 eliminated from the mind of the guest any idea that hos- 
 pitality was to be extended. Once more the little group 
 were by themselves. 
 
 " There is the Buckingham Hotel," Mrs. Carew ven- 
 tured.., " It's an excellent hotel ; we get croquettes from 
 there* when Gardiner's appetite flags. The children have 
 their hair cut there as well." 
 
 Tired as Fairfax was, rebuffed as he was, he could not 
 but be cheered by the bright look of the little girl who 
 stood between him and her mother. She nodded at her 
 cousin. 
 
 "Why, the Buckingham is six dollars a day," she said. 
 " I asked the barber when he cut Gardiner's hair." 
 
 Fairfax smiled. " I reckon that is a little steep, 
 Bella." 
 
 " It's too far away, anyhow, Cousin Antony, it's a 
 mile; twenty blocks is a New York mile. There are 
 the Whitcombs." And the child turned to the less 
 capable woman. 
 
 Her mother exclaimed: "Why, of course, of course, 
 there are the Whitcombs! My dear Antony," said his 
 aunt, " if you could only stay with them you would be 
 doing a real charity. They are dear little old maids and 
 self-supporting women. They sell their work in my 
 women's exchange. They have a nice little house." 
 
 Bella interrupted. " A dear little red-brick house, 
 Cousin Antony, two stories, on the next block." 
 
 She tucked her book under her arm as though it were 
 a little trunk she was tucking away to get ready to jour- 
 ney with him. 
 
 " The Whitcombs would be perfectly enchanted, 
 Antony," urged his aunt, " they want a lodger badly. It's 
 Number 700, Madison Avenue." 
 
 " It looks like the house that Jack built," murmured 
 Gardiner, dreamily; "they have just wepainted it bwight 
 wed with yellow doors. . . ."
 
 10 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Fairfax thanked them and went, his heavy and his 
 light step echoing on the hard stairway of his kinsmen's 
 inhospitable house. Bella watched him from the head 
 of the stairs, her book under her arm, and below, at the 
 door, he shouldered his bag and went out into the whirling, 
 whirling snow. It met him softly, like a caress, but it was 
 very cold. Bella had said two blocks away to the left, 
 and he started blindly. 
 
 This was his welcome from his own people. 
 
 His Southern home seemed a million miles away; but 
 come what would, he would never return to it empty- 
 handed as he had left it. He had been thrust from the 
 door where he felt he had a right to enter. That threshold 
 he would never darken again never. A pile of un- 
 shovelled snow blocked his path. As he crossed the 
 street to avoid it, he looked up at the big, fine house. 
 From an upper window the shade was lifted, and in the 
 square of yellow light stood the two children, the little 
 boy's head just visible, and Bella, her dark hair blotting 
 against the light, waved to him her friendly, cousinly little 
 hand. He forged on through the snow to " The House 
 that Jack built."
 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 
 HE was the seventh son, and his mother was tired of child- 
 bearing when Antony was born. The others, mediocre, 
 fine fellows, left to their father's control, had turned out 
 as well as children are likely to turn out when brought 
 up by a man. One by one, during the interval of years 
 before Antony came, one by one they had died, and when 
 Mr. Fairfax himself passed away, he left his wife alone 
 with Antony a baby in her arms. She then gave herself 
 up to her grief and the contemplation of her beauty. 
 Adored, spoiled, an indifferent house-keeper, Mrs. Fairfax 
 was, nevertheless, what is known as a charming creature, 
 and a sincere artist. She had her studio, her canvases, 
 she wrote plays and songs, and nothing, with the ex- 
 ception perhaps of realities, for she knew nothing of them, 
 nothing made less impression on her than did her only 
 child, until one day she suddenly remembered Antony when 
 it was too late. 
 
 He was like his mother, but she was unconscious of 
 the fact. She only knew him as a rowdy boy, fond of 
 sports, an alarmingly rough fighter, the chief in the 
 neighbourhood scuffles, a vigorous, out-of-door boy, at 
 the head of a yelling, wild little band that made her nerves 
 quiver. Coloured servants and his Mammy soothed 
 Antony's ills and washed his bruises. With a feeling of 
 shame he thrust aside his artistic inclinations, lest his 
 comrades should call him a milksop, but he drew copiously 
 in secret, when he was kept in at school or housed with a 
 cold. And from the distance at which she kept him, 
 Antony worshipped his mother. He admired her hauteur, 
 the proud cold loveliness. His sunny nature, incapable 
 of morose or morbid brooding, felt no neglect. Late in 
 spring they too had gone north to a water cure popular
 
 12 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 with Louisiana people, where a more vigorous growth of 
 trees magnetized Antony, who climbed like a squirrel 
 and tore his clothes to his heart's content. He had come 
 in from a tramp and, scandalized by his rough and tumbled 
 appearance as she caught a glimpse of him swinging along, 
 Mrs. Fairfax summoned her little son. Rocking idly on 
 the verandah she watched him obey her call, and there 
 was so much buoyant life in his running step, such a boy's 
 grace and brightness about him that he charmed her 
 beauty-loving eyes. 
 
 " Go, wash your face and hands and bring your school 
 books here. I do hope you have brought your books with 
 you." 
 
 When he reappeared with the volumes of dog-eared 
 school books, she fingered them gingerly, fell on his drawing 
 portfolio and opened it. 
 
 " Who drew these for you, Tony ? " 
 
 " Mother, no one. I did them. They are rotten." 
 
 Mrs. Fairfax exclaimed with excitement : " Why, 
 they are quite extraordinary! You must study with 
 some one." 
 
 Blushing, enraptured, Antony was tongue-tied, although 
 a host of things rushed to his lips that now he might be 
 permitted to speak to her he longed to tell everything 
 that was on his heart. 
 
 Neither of them forgot that day. The wistaria was 
 purple in the vines, and his mother, a shawl with trailing 
 fringe over her shoulders, rocked indolent and charming 
 in her chair. She had made her husband and her other 
 sons her slaves, and she remembered now, with a sense 
 of comfort, that she had another servitor. 
 
 " My shoe is unbuttoned " she raised her small foot 
 " button it, Tony." 
 
 The boy fell on his knees, eager to offer his first service 
 to the lovely woman, but his hands were awkward. He 
 bungled and pinched the delicate skin. The mother cried 
 out, leaned over and smartly boxed his ears. 
 
 " Stupid boy, go ; send me Emmeline." 
 
 Poor Antony retired, and as Emmeline took his place he 
 heard his mother murmur 
 
 " Aren't the cherries ripe yet, Emmy ? I'm dying to 
 taste some cherries, they're so delicious in the North."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 13 
 
 Emmeline had fastened the shoe and lagged away with 
 southern negligence, leaving Antony's books as he had 
 flung them on the porch, and though it was an effort to 
 lean over, Mrs. Fairfax did so, picked up the drawing-book 
 and studied it again. 
 
 " Talented little monkey," she mused, " he has my gift, 
 my looks too, I think. How straight he walks! He has 
 ' V elegance d'un homme du monde.' '' 
 
 She called herself Creole and prided herself on her 
 French and her languor. 
 
 She^.sat musing thus, the book on her knees, when 
 half an hour later they carried him in to her. He had 
 fallen from a rotten branch on the highest cherry tree in 
 the grounds. 
 
 He struck on his hip. 
 
 All night she sat by his side. The surgeons had told 
 her that he would be a cripple for life if he ever walked 
 again. Toward morning he regained his senses and saw 
 her sitting there. Mrs. Fairfax remembered Antony 
 that day. She remembered him that day and that 
 night, and his cry of " Oh, mother, I was getting the 
 cherries for you ! " 
 
 Before they built him his big, awkward boot, when he 
 walked again at all, Antony went about on crutches, 
 debarred from boyish games. In order to forget his 
 fellows and the school-yard and " the street " he modelled 
 in the soft delicious clay, making hosts of creatures, fig- 
 ures, heads and arms and hands, and brought them in 
 damp from the clay of the levee. His own small room 
 was a studio, peopled by his young art. No sooner, how- 
 ever, was he strong again and his big shoe built up, than 
 his boy-self was built up as well, and Antony, lame, limp- 
 ing Antony, was out again with his mates. He never 
 again could run as they did, but he contrived to fence and 
 spar and box, and strangely enough, he grew tall and 
 strong. One day he came into his little room from a ball 
 game, for he was the pitcher of the nine, and found his 
 mother handling his clayey creatures. 
 
 " Tony, when did you do these ? " 
 
 " Oh, they are nothing. Leave them alone, mother. I 
 meant to fire them all out."
 
 14 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "But this is an excellent likeness of the General, 
 Tony." 
 
 He threw down his baseball mask and gloves and began 
 to gather up unceremoniously the little objects which had 
 dried crisp and hard. 
 
 " Don't destroy them/' his mother said ; " I want every 
 one of them. And you must stop being a rowdy and a 
 ruffian, Antony you are an artist." 
 
 He was smoothing between his palms one of the small 
 figures. 
 
 " Professor Duf aucon could teach you something not 
 much, poor old gentleman, but something elementary. To- 
 morrow, after school, you must go to take your first lesson." 
 
 Mrs. Fairfax took the boy herself, with the bust of the 
 famous General in her hands, and afterwards sent the bust 
 to Washington, to its subject himself, who was pleased to 
 commend the portrait made of him by the little Southern 
 boy from the clay of the New Orleans levee. 
 
 Professor Dufaucon taught him all he knew of art 
 and something of what he knew of other things. In the 
 small hall-room of the poor French drawing-master, 
 Antony talked French, learned the elements of the study 
 of beauty and listened to the sweet strains of the Pro- 
 fessor's flute when he played, "J'ai perdu ma tourte- 
 relle. . . ." 
 
 In everything that he modelled Antony tried to portray 
 his mother's face. As she had been indifferent to him 
 before, so ardently Mrs. Fairfax adored him now. She 
 poured out her tenderness on this crippled boy. He had 
 been known to say to his Mammy that he was glad that 
 he had fallen from the cherry tree because his mother 
 had never kissed him before, and her tears and her love, 
 he thought, were worth the price. She was as selfish with 
 him in her affection as she had been in her indifference. 
 She would not hear of college, and he learned what he 
 could in New Orleans. But the day came when his mis- 
 tress, art, put in a claim so seductive and so strong that 
 it clouded everything else. Professor Dufaucon died, and 
 in the same year Antony sent a statuette to the New York 
 Academy of Design. It was accepted, and the wine of that 
 praise went to his head. 
 
 Mrs. Fairfax, broken as no event in her life had been
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 15 
 
 able to break her, saw Antony leave for the North to seek 
 his fortune and his fame. 
 
 She owned her house in Charles Street, and lived on 
 in it, and the little income that she had barely sufficed 
 for her needs. She showed what race and what pride 
 she had when she bade Antony good-bye, standing under 
 the jasmine vine. She never wore any other dress than a 
 loose morning robe of a white or a soft mauve material. 
 Standing there, with a smile of serene beauty, she waved 
 her handkerchief to him as she saw him go limping down 
 the walk from the garden to the street and out of sight. 
 True to her type then, she fainted dead away, and 
 Emmeline and Mammy brought her to. 
 
 He thought of things in Miss Whitcomb's front room. 
 There was nothing fairylike about the red-brick dwelling, 
 although at the corner of the New York Avenue these two 
 stories seemed diminutive and out of place. He made 
 with the timid maiden ladies his own timid arrangement. 
 He was so poor and they were so poor that the transaction 
 was timorous Antony on his part was afraid that they 
 might not take him in, they, on theirs, were terrified lest 
 the lodger would not come in. When at length they left 
 him alone, his first feeling was gratitude for a room of 
 any kind that represented shelter from the Northern cold, 
 but when he had divested himself of his coat, he realized 
 that the little unheated room was as cold as the outside. 
 A meagre bed, a meagre bureau and washstand, two 
 unwelcoming chairs, these few inanimate objects were 
 shut in with Antony, and unattractive as they were, they 
 were appealing in their scant ugliness. Before the window 
 slight white curtains hung, the same colour as the snow 
 without. They hung like little shrouds. Around the 
 windows of his Southern home the vine had laid its beauty, 
 and the furnishings had been comfortable and tasteful. 
 The homelessness of this interior, to the young man who 
 had never passed a night from under his own roof, struck 
 with a chill, and he thought of the sitting-room in the 
 vast house of his kinsmen not a block away. His kins- 
 people had not even asked him to break bread. Dressed 
 as he was, he lay down exhausted on his bed, and when 
 a knock came and Miss "Vfhitcomb's voice invited him to 
 supper, Fairfax sprang up and answered as out of a dream.
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 His fortune of twenty-five dollars he divided into five 
 equal packets. His weekly bill with the old ladies, to 
 whom his aunt had begged Antony to go in charity, was 
 to be six dollars. There would of course be extras, car- 
 fare and so forth. With economy it would last. An- 
 tony saw everything on the bright side; youth and talent 
 can only imagine that the best will last for ever. De- 
 cidedly, before his money gave out he would have found 
 some suitable employment. 
 
 With the summons for supper he flung on his coat, 
 plunged downstairs and into the dining-room, and shone 
 upon his hostesses over their tea and preserves. The 
 new boarder chatted and planned and listened, jovial and 
 kindly, his soul's good-fellowship and sweet temper shed- 
 ding a radiance in the chill little room. Miss Eulalie 
 Whitcomb was in the sixties, and she fell in love with 
 Antony in a motherly way. Miss Mitty was fifteen years 
 her junior, and she fell in love with Antony as a woman 
 might. Fairfax never knew the poignant ache he caused 
 in that heart, virginal only, cold only because of the pro- 
 longed winter of her maidenhood. 
 
 That night he heard his aunt's praises sung, and 
 listened, going back with a pang to the picture the family 
 group had made before his home-loving eyes. 
 
 Such a marvellous woman, Mr. Fairfax (she must 
 call him Antony if he was to live with them. Miss Mitty 
 couldn't. She must. Well, Mr. Antony then), such a 
 brilliant and executive woman. Mrs. Carew had founded 
 the Women's Exchange for the work of indigent ladies, 
 such a dignified, needed charity. 
 
 Miss Mitty knew a little old lady who made fifteen 
 hundred dollars in rag dolls alone. 
 
 16
 
 17 
 
 " Dear me," said Fairfax, " couldn't you pass me off 
 for a niece, Miss Whitcomb? I can make clay figures 
 that will beat rag dolls to bits." 
 
 Fifteen hundred dollars ! He mused on his aunt's 
 charity. 
 
 " And another," murmured Miss Eulalie, " another 
 friend of ours made altogether ten thousand dollars in 
 chicken pies." 
 
 " Ah," exclaimed the lodger, " that's even easier to 
 believe. And does my uncle Carew make pies or dolls ? " 
 
 "JEJe is a pillar of the Church," said his hostess 
 gravely, " a very distinguished gentleman, Mr. Antony. 
 He bowed once to one of us in the street. Which of us 
 was it, sister ? " 
 
 Not Miss Mitty, at any rate, and she was inclined to 
 think that Mr. Carew had made a mistake, whichever way 
 it had been ! 
 
 Their lodger listened with more interest when they 
 spoke of the children. The little creatures wont to school 
 near the Whitcomb house. Gardiner was always ailing. 
 Miss Mitty used to watch them from her window. 
 
 " Bella runs like a deer down the block, you never 
 saw such nimble legs, and her skirts are so short! They 
 should come down, Mr. Antony, and her hair is quite like 
 a wild savage's." 
 
 Miss Eulalie had called Bella in once to mend a hole 
 in her stocking " really too bad for school." 
 
 " She should have gone into the Women's Exchange," 
 suggested her cousin, " and employed some one who was 
 out of orders for chicken pies or dolls ! " 
 
 That night, under the gas jet and its blue and ghastly 
 light, Fairfax tried to write to his mother, began his 
 letter and left it as he began. " My dearest Mother . . ." 
 She had told him little of his kinspeople, the sisters had 
 never been friends. Nevertheless, he quite understood 
 that, whatever she might have thought of the eccen- 
 tricities of his uncle, this welcome to her boy would cut 
 her cruelly. She had fully expected him to be a guest at 
 the Carews. 
 
 " My dearest Mother . . ." He began to draw idly on 
 the page. A spray of jasmine uncurled its leaves beneath
 
 18 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 his hand. Across his shoulders he felt the coldness of 
 the room where he sat. A few more hurried strokes and 
 Fairfax had indicated on the page before him a child's 
 head an upturned face. As he rounded the chin, An- 
 tony saw that the sketch would be likely to charm him, 
 and he was tired out and cold. He threw down his pen, 
 dragged out his valise, opened it, took out his things and 
 prepared for his first night's rest in the city of his un- 
 friendly kinsmen.
 
 IF it had been only spring, or any season less brutal than 
 this winter, whose severity met him at times with a 
 fresh rebuff and a fresh surprise if it had been spring, 
 Antony would have procrastinated, hung back, unaccus- 
 tomed as he was to taking quick, decisive action, but the 
 ugliness of the surroundings at Miss Whitcombs' and the 
 bitter winter weather forced him to a decision. In the 
 three following days he visited every one of the few 
 studios that existed at that period in New York. What 
 were his plans? What were his ideas? But, when he 
 came face to face with the reality of the matter-of-fact 
 question, he had no plans. Idealistic, impractical, 
 untried and unschooled, he faced the fact that he had no 
 plan or idea whatsoever of how to forge his life : he never 
 had had any and his mother had given him no advice. 
 He wanted to work at art, but how and where he did 
 not know. Some of the studios could use models 
 Fairfax burned at the thought. He could not study 
 as a pupil and live on air. No one wanted practical 
 workmen. 
 
 The man he most wanted to see was Gunner Ceders- 
 holm. He had fallen in love with the works of the 
 Swedish master as he had seen them in photograph and 
 plaster cast at the exposition in New Orleans. He had 
 read all the accounts in the papers he could find of .the 
 great Swede. When he learned that Gunner Cedersholm 
 was in Europe and that he should not be able to see him 
 until spring, poor Antony longed to stow himself on a 
 ship and follow the artist. 
 
 Meanwhile, the insignificant fact that an insignificant 
 piece of modelling had been accepted by an inadvertent 
 jury and placed in the New York Academy, began to 
 
 19
 
 20 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 appear to him ridiculous. He had not ventured to 
 mention this to any one, and the fact that at his fingers' 
 ends lay undoubted talent began to seem to him a useless 
 thing as well. The only moment of balm he knew came 
 to him one afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum. This 
 museum was at that period sparsely dowered. Fairfax 
 stood before a plaster figure of Rameses, and for 
 the first time the young artist saw around him the 
 effigies of an art long perfect, long retained and long 
 dead. 
 
 Turning down through the Egyptian room, his over- 
 coat on his arm, for, thank Heaven, the place was warmed, 
 his beauty-loving eyes fell on the silent objects whose 
 presence was meed and balm. He took in the nourish- 
 ment of the food to his senses and the colour in his cheeks 
 brightened, the blue deepened in his eyes. He was 
 repeating the line : " Thou foster-child of Silence and 
 slow Time . . ." when two living objects caught his 
 attention, in a room beyond devoted to a collection of 
 shells. Before a low case stood the figure of a very little 
 boy in a long awkward ulster and jockey cap, and by his 
 side, in a conspicuously short crimson skirt and a rough 
 coat, was a little girl. Her slender legs and her abundant 
 hair that showered from beneath a crimson tam-o'-shanter 
 recalled Miss Mitty's description of Bella; but Antony 
 knew her for herself when she turned. 
 
 " Cousin Antony ! " She rushed at him. Childlike, 
 the two made no reference to the lapse of time between 
 his first visit and this second meeting. Gardiner took 
 his hand and Antony thought the little boy clung to it, 
 seized it with singular appealing force, as though he made 
 a refuge of the strong clasp. Bella greeted him with her 
 eager, brilliant look, then she rapidly glanced round the 
 room, deserted save for themselves. 
 
 " Something perfectly fearful happened last week, 
 Cousin Antony. Yes, Gardiner, I will tell. Anyhow, 
 it's all over now, thank the stars." (He learned to hear 
 her thank these silent heavenly guardians often.) "What 
 do you think? Last week we came here, Gardiner and 
 me, we come often. We play with the ancient Egyptians. 
 I'm Cleopatra and Gardiner's different things, and there's 
 a guardian here that we specially like because he taught
 
 21 
 
 us things useful for school if you have a weak memory. 
 This is how you remember the poets 
 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Pope, 
 Go upstairs and get some soap. 
 
 So you see we can't forget them like that. And Shake- 
 speare's birth and death I never could remember till he 
 taught me 
 
 Fifteen hundred and sixty-four 
 Shakespeare first was heard to roar. 
 Sixteen hundred and sixteen 
 Billy Shakespeare last was seen. 
 
 When your memory's weak it's a great help, Cousin 
 Antony. Then what do you think Gardiner did ? " 
 
 Here Fairfax was more than ever sensible of the 
 little boy's clinging hand. He looked down at the 
 sensitive, flushed face, and the fascinated eyes of Gardiner 
 were fixed on the vigorous, ardent little sister. 
 
 " Well," said Antony, cordially, " I reckon it's not any- 
 thing very bad, little cousin." 
 
 He led them to a bench under the calm serene chaper- 
 onage of Rameses who kept sentinel over them. 
 
 " Bad," whispered Bella, " why it was the worst 
 thing you can possibly imagine, Cousin Antony. He 
 stole." 
 
 The child's voice dropped solemnly and the silence 
 that fell in the museum was impressive, even though 
 the situation was humorous. Gardiner, whom Antony 
 had lifted on his knee, raised his head and looked his 
 cousin mildly in the eyes. 
 
 " It was a shell," he said slowly, " a blue and bwown 
 shell. Nobody was looking and I took it home." 
 
 He confessed calmly and without shame, and his 
 sister said 
 
 " The guardian was cleaning the cases. I think they 
 trusted us, Cousin Antony, we were alone here, and it 
 makes it much worse, When we got home Gardiner 
 showed it to me, and we have had to wait a week to come 
 back and restore it." 
 
 " I westored it," repeated the boy, " Bella made me." 
 
 With his diminutive hand he made a shell and 
 discoursed regretfully
 
 22 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 " It was a perfectly lovely shell. It's over there in 
 its place. Bella made me put it back again." 
 
 " The worst of it is/' said the sister, " that he doesn't 
 seem to care. He doesn't mind being a thief." 
 
 " Well," laughed Antony, " don't you trouble about 
 it, Bella honey, you have been a policeman and a judge 
 and a benefactor all in one, and you have brought the 
 booty back. Come," said Fairfax, "there's the man that 
 shuts us out and the shells in, and we must go." And 
 they were all three at the park gate in the early twilight 
 before the children asked him 
 
 " Cousin Antony, where have you been all these 
 days?" 
 
 He saw the children to their own door, and on the 
 way little Gardiner complained that his shoes were tight, 
 so his cousin carried him, and nearly carried Bella, who, 
 linking her arm firmly in his, walked close to him, and, 
 unobserved by Antony, with sympathetic gallantry, 
 copied his limp all the way home. 
 
 Their companionship had been of the most perfect. 
 He learned where they roller skated, and which were the 
 cracks to avoid in the pavement, and which were the 
 treasure lots. He saw where, in dreary excavations, where 
 plantain and goatweed grew, Bella found stores of quartz 
 and flints, and where she herded the mangy goat when 
 the Irish ragpickers were out ragpicking. 
 
 Under his burden of Gardiner Antony's heart had, 
 nevertheless, grown light, and before they had reached 
 the house he had murmured to them, in his rich singing 
 voice, Spartacus' address to the gladiators, and where 
 it says : " Oh, Borne, Eome, thou hast been a tender nurse 
 to me; thou hast given to the humble shepherd boy 
 muscles of iron and a heart of steel," where these eloquent 
 words occurred he was obliged to stand still on Madison 
 Avenue, with the little boy in his arms, to give the lines 
 their full impressiveness. 
 
 Once deposited on the steps, where Fairfax looked to 
 see rise the effigies of the ashes his uncle had ordered 
 scattered, Gardiner seemed hardly able to crawl. 
 
 Trevelyan encouraged him: "Brace up, Gardiner, 
 be a man."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 23 
 
 And the child had mildly responded that "his bones 
 were tired." His sister supported him maternally and 
 helped him up, nodding to Antony that she would look 
 after her little brother, and Antony heard the boy say 
 
 " Six and six are twelve, Bella, and you're both, and 
 I'm only one of them. How can you expect. . . ? " 
 
 Antony expected by this time nothing. 
 
 And when that night the eager Miss Whitcombs 
 handed him a letter from his aunt, with the heading 780, 
 Madison Avenue, in gold, he eagerly tore it open. 
 
 " My dear Antony," the letter ran, " the children 
 shoufd have drawing lessons, Gardiner especially draws 
 constantly; I think he has talent. Will you come and 
 teach them three times a week? I don't know about 
 remuneration for such things, except as the school bills 
 indicate. Shall we say twenty dollars a term and I 
 am. not clear as to what a 'term' is! In music lessons, 
 for instance " (She had evidently made some cal- 
 culations and scratched it out, and here the price was 
 dropped for ever and ever.) 
 
 To an unpractical woman such a drop is always 
 soothing, and to a sensitive pauper probably no less so. 
 The letter ended with the suggestion to Antony that he 
 meet them in their own pew on Sunday morning at the 
 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and that he return 
 with them for dinner.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 HE succeceded in keeping from the kind and curious 
 interest of the little ladies the state of his mind and his 
 pocket, and his intentions. It had not been easy, for 
 when their courteous hints brought no satisfaction, Miss 
 Eulalie and Miss Mitty asked Fairfax out boldly what he 
 *' was going to do " ? Miss Mitty, on whom the task of 
 doing up the hall room had fallen, dreamed over the 
 sketches she found (in his valise). Spellbound, she held 
 in her hand a small head of a dryad, and modestly covered 
 up with her handkerchief a tiny figure whose sweet 
 nudity had startled her. Antony parried questions. He 
 had come to seek Fortune. So far it rolled before him 
 with the very devil in its tantalizing wheel, but he did 
 not say this to Miss Whitcomb. Miss Eulalie suggested 
 to him that his uncle " could make a place for him in 
 the bank," but Fairfax's short reply cooled her enthusiasm, 
 and both ladies took their cue. In the first week he had 
 exhausted his own projects and faced the horrible thought 
 of disaster. 
 
 His nature was not one to harbour anything but 
 sweetness, and the next day, Sunday, when the sunlight 
 poured upon New York, he thought of the little cousins 
 and decided to accept his aunt's invitation. The sky was 
 cloudless and under its hard blue the city looked colder 
 and whiter than ever. It was a sky which in New Orleans 
 would have made the birds sing. The steeples sang, one 
 slender tower rocking as its early ringing bells sang out 
 its Sunday music on the next corner of the street, and 
 Antony listened as he dressed, and recognized the melody. 
 He found it beautiful and sang in his young voice as he 
 shaved and tied his cravat, and made himself impeccable 
 for the Presbyterian Church. His own people were High 
 
 24
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 25 
 
 Church Episcopalians^ and from the tone and music of 
 these bells he believed that they rang in an Episcopal 
 building. There was no melancholy in the honied tone 
 of the chime, and it gave him a glow that went with him 
 happily throughout the dreary day. 
 
 He found himself between the children in the deep 
 dark pew, where the back of the seat was especially con- 
 trived to seize the sinner in a sensitive point, and it 
 clutched Antony and made him think of all the crimes 
 that he had ever committed. Fortunately it met Bella 
 and Gardiner at their heads. Antony's position between 
 the children was not without danger. He was to serve 
 as a quieter for Bella's nerves, spirits and perpetual 
 motion, and to guard against Gardiner's somnolence. 
 He remained deaf to Bella's clear whispers, and settled 
 Gardiner comfortably and propped him up. Finally 
 the little boy fell securely against the cousinly arm. At 
 the end of the pew, Mr. and Mrs. Carew were absorbed, 
 she in her emotional interest in the pastor, a brilliant 
 Irishman who thundered for an hour, and Mr. Carew 
 in his own importance and his position. Antony remem- 
 bered Miss Mitty and that his uncle was a pillar of the 
 Church, and he watched the pillar support in grave 
 pomposity his part of the edifice. 
 
 But neither time nor place nor things eternal nor things 
 present affected the little girl at Antony's side. Sunk in 
 the deep pew, unobserved and sheltered by Antony's figure, 
 she lived what she called her " Sunday pew life," lived it 
 as ardently as she did everything. After a short interval 
 in which she pored over the open hymnbook, she whispered 
 to him 
 
 " Cousin Antony, I have learned the whole hymn, ten 
 verses in five minutes. Hear me." 
 
 He tried to ignore her, but he was obliged to hear her 
 as with great feeling and in a soft droning undertone she 
 murmured the hymn through. 
 
 " ' Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.' Isn't it 
 perfectly beautiful, Cousin Antony? " 
 
 This done, she took off her yellow kid gloves carefully, 
 finger by finger, and blew them out into a shapely little 
 hand like Zephyr's, to the dangerous amusement of a 
 child in the next pew. Antony confiscated the gloves.
 
 26 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 By squeezing tip her eyes and making a lorgnon of her 
 pretty bare hand, Bella scrutinized the solemn preacher. 
 Antony severely refused her pencils and paper and 
 remained deaf to her soft questions, and, thrown on her 
 own resources, Bella extracted her father's huge Bible 
 from the rack and, to Fairfax's relief, with much turning 
 of the leaves she finally found a favourite chapter in 
 Revelation and settled down and immersed herself in the 
 Apocalypse. She read with fervour, her bonnet back on 
 her rebellious hair, her legs crossed in defiance of every 
 rule of polite demeanour. Something of the sermon's 
 eloquent, passionate savagery was heard by Fairfax, and 
 at the close, as the preacher rose to his climax, Bella 
 heard too. At the text, "There shall be no more night 
 there, neither candle nor light of the sun," she shut her 
 book. 
 
 " He is preaching from my chapter, Cousin Antony/' 
 she whispered ; " isn't it perfectly beautiful ? " 
 
 Fairfax learned to wait for this phrase of hers, a ready 
 approval of sensuous and lovely and poetic things. He 
 learned to wait for it as one does for a word of praise from 
 a sympathetic companion. Gardiner woke up and 
 yawned, and Fairfax got him on his feet: his tumbled 
 blonde head reached just to the hyrnnbook rail. He was 
 a pretty picture with his flushed soft cheeks, red as roses, 
 and his sleepy eyes wide. So they stood for the solemn 
 benediction, " The love of God ... go with you . . . 
 always."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HE decided not to be the one to shut doors against himself. 
 If life as it went on chose with backward fling to close 
 portals behind him of its own accord, he at least would 
 not assist fate, and with both hands, generously, as his 
 heart was generous, Fairfax threw all gates wide. There- 
 fore with no arriere pensee or any rankling thought, he 
 went on the appointed afternoon to teach his little cousins 
 the rudiments of drawing. 
 
 The weather continued brutal, grew more severe 
 rather, and smartly whipped him up the avenue and 
 hurled him into the house. He arrived covered with 
 snow, white as Santa Glaus, and he heard by the voices 
 at the stair head that he was welcome. The three were 
 alone, the upper floor had been assigned to the drawing 
 party. It was a big room full of forgotten things, tons of 
 books that people had ceased to want to read, the linen 
 chest, a capital hiding-place where a soft hand beneath 
 the lid might prevent a second Mistletoe Bough tragedy. 
 There were old trunks stored there, boxes which could 
 not travel any more, one of which had been on a wedding 
 journey and still contained, amongst less poetic objects, 
 mother's wedding slippers. There was a dear disorder 
 in the big room whose windows overlooked Madison and 
 Fifth Avenues, and the distant, black wintry trees of 
 Central Park. A child on either side of him, Fairfax 
 surveyed his workshop, and he thought to himself, " I 
 could model here, if I only had some clay/' 
 
 Bella had already installed herself. Their tables and 
 their boards and a prodigal outlay of pencils and paper 
 were in themselves inspiring. 
 
 " There is no chair high enough for Gardiner," Bella 
 said, " but we can build him one up out of books." 
 
 27
 
 28 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " I'd wather sit on Cousin Antony's lap," said the little 
 boy ; " built-up books shake me off so, Bella." 
 
 Both children wore blue gingham play aprons. Fairfax 
 told them they looked like real workmen in a real studio, 
 with which idea they were much delighted. 
 
 " Gardiner looks like a charity child," said his sister, 
 "in that apron, and his hair's too long." It ought to be 
 cut, but I gave my solemn word of honour that I wouldn't 
 cut it again." 
 
 "Why don't you go to your famoun Buckingham 
 barber ? " asked the cousin. 
 
 " It's too far for Gardiner to walk," she returned, " and 
 we have lost our last ten cents. Besides, it's thirty-five 
 cents to get a hair-cut." 
 
 Fairfax had placed the boy before his drawing board, 
 and confiscated a long piece of kitchen bread, telling Bella 
 that less than a whole loaf was enough for an eraser, ex- 
 tracted the rubber from Gardiner's mouth, and sat down 
 by the little boy's side. 
 
 " There's not much money in this house, Cousin 
 Antony," Bella informed him when the stance opened. 
 " Please let me use the soft pencils, will you ? They slide 
 like delicious velvet." 
 
 Fairfax made an equal division of the implements, 
 avoiding a scene, and made Bella a straight line across 
 the page. 
 
 " Draw a line under it." 
 
 " But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, 
 scornfully, " and I don't think they are very pretty." 
 
 " Don't you ? " he answered ; " the horizon is pretty, 
 don't you think ? And the horizon is a straight line." 
 
 " Yes, it is," said Gardiner, " the howizon is where the 
 (street cars fall over into the sunset." 
 
 " Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, " you 
 mustn't expect much of him, Cousin Antony." 
 
 She curled over the table and bent her head and 
 broke her pencils one by one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's 
 hand and watched the little girl. She was lightly and 
 finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty 
 leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was 
 a hole in the stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny 
 slipper. Through the crude dark collar of the gingham
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 29 
 
 apron came her dark head and its wild torrent of curling 
 hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling 
 roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of 
 her cheek was like ivory. She was a Southern beauty 
 her little red mouth twisted awry over her drawing. 
 
 " I thought dwawing was making pictures, Cousin 
 Antony; if I'd have known it was lines, I wouldn't have 
 taken/' said his youngest cousin. 
 
 " You have to begin with those things, old man. 
 I'll wipe your hands off on my handkerchief." 
 
 " Please do," said the little boy ; " my hands leak awful 
 easy*" 
 
 His sister laughed softly, and said to herself in an 
 undertone 
 
 " I've drawn my lines long long ago, and now I'm 
 making . . ." 
 
 " Don't make anything, Bella, until I tell you to," 
 commanded her teacher, and glanced over her page where 
 she had covered the paper with her big formless hand- 
 writing, " Dramatiss personi, first act." 
 
 " Why, I had a lovely idea for a play, Cousin Antony, 
 and I thought I'd just jot it down. We're the company, 
 Gardiner and I, and we give plays here every now and 
 then. You can play too, if you like, and say ' Spar- 
 tacus.' Ah, say it now." 
 
 Trevelyan felt the appealing little hand of the boy steal- 
 ing into his. 
 
 " Do, please," he urged ; " I don't want ever to draw 
 again, never, never." 
 
 " Hush," said his sister severely, " you mustn't say that, 
 Gardiner ; Cousin Antony is our drawing master." 
 
 Gardiner's sensitive face flushed. " I thought he was 
 only my cousin," said the child, and continued timidly, 
 " I'll dwaw a howizon now and then if you want me to, 
 but I'd wather not." 
 
 They left their tables. Fairfax said, "I'm no good 
 at teaching, Bella." He stretched his arms. " I reckon 
 you're not much good at learning either. Gardiner's too 
 young and you're not an artist." 
 
 " Say about the ' timid shepherd boy,' Cousin Antony." 
 
 He had taken his coat off in the furnace-heated room 
 and stood in his snowy shirt sleeves, glad to be released
 
 30 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 from the unwelcome task of teaching restless children. He 
 loved the ring and the thrill of the words and declaimed the 
 lines enthusiastically. 
 
 "You look like a gladiator, Cousin Antony," Bella 
 cried ; " you must have a perfectly splendid muscle." 
 
 He bared his right arm, carried away by his recitation 
 and the picture evoked. The children admired the 
 sinews and the swelling biceps. Gardiner touched it 
 with his little fingers ; the muscular firm arm, ending in the 
 vigorous wrist, held their fascinated gaze. The sculptor 
 himself looked up it with pardonable approval. 
 
 " Feel mine," said Gardiner, crimson with the exertion 
 of lifting his tiny arm to the position of his cousin's. 
 
 " Immense, Gardiner ! " Fairfax complimented, 
 " immense." 
 
 " Feel mine," cried Bella, and the sculptor touched 
 between his fingers the fine little member. 
 
 " Great, little cousin ! " 
 
 " I'll be the gladiator's wife and applaud him from the 
 Coliseum and throw flowers on him." 
 
 Fairfax lingered with them another hour, laughing 
 at his simplicity in finding them such companions. With 
 compunction, he endeavoured to take up his lesson again 
 with Bella, unwilling and recalcitrant. She drew a few 
 half-hearted circles, a page of wobbly lines, and at the 
 suspicion of tears Fairfax desisted, surprised to find how 
 the idea of tears from her touched him. Then in the 
 window between them, he watched as the children told 
 him they always did, for "mother's car to come 
 home." 
 
 " She is sharping," exclaimed Gardiner, slowly ; " she 
 has to sharp very hard, my mother does. She comes 
 back in the cars, only she never comes," he finished with 
 patient fatality. 
 
 " Silly," exclaimed his sister, " she always comes at 
 dinner-time. And we bet on the cars, Cousin Antony. 
 Now let's say it will be the seventy-first. We have to 
 put it far away off," she explained, " 'cause we're beginning 
 early." 
 
 Fairfax left them, touched by their patience in watch- 
 ing for the mother bird. He promised to return soon, soon,
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 31 
 
 to go on with his wonderful tales. As he went downstairs 
 Bella called after him. 
 
 " But you didn't say which car you bet on, Cousin 
 Antony." 
 
 And Fairfax called back in his Southern drawl : " I 
 reckon she'll come in a pumpkin chariot." And he heard 
 their delighted giggles as he limped downstairs.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HE avoided his uncle, Mr. Carew, and made up his mind 
 that if the master of the house were brusque to him, he 
 would not return, were the threshold worn never so dear 
 bj little feet. Bella had the loveliest little feet a fellow 
 connoisseur of plastic beauty could wish to see, could 
 wish to watch twinkle in run-down slippers, in scuffled 
 boots in boots where a button or two was always lack- 
 ing and once when she kicked off her strap slipper at a 
 lesson Fairfax saw, through a hole in the stocking, one 
 small perfect toe a toe of Greek marble perfection, a 
 most charming, snowy, rosy bit of flesh, and he imagined 
 how adorable the little foot must be. 
 
 To an audience, composed of a dreamy boy and an 
 ardent, enthusiastic little girl, Fairfax confessed his 
 talent, spoke of his hopes, of his art, even hinted at 
 genius, and one day fetched his treasures, his bits of 
 moistened clay, to show the children. 
 
 " Oh, they are perfectly beautiful, Cousin Antony. 
 Wouldn't you do Gardiner's head for mother ? " 
 
 On this day, with his overcoat and hat, Fairfax had 
 laid by a paper parcel. It was stormy, and around the 
 upper windows the snow blew and the winds cried. 
 Propped up by pillows, Gardiner, in his red flannel dress- 
 ing-gown, neitled in the corner of the sofa. Antony re- 
 garded Bella, red as a cardinal bird in her homely dress; 
 he had seen her wear no other dress and would have re- 
 gretted the change. 
 
 " Oh, I'll do Gardiner one of these days, but I reckon 
 I'll make another study to-day." 
 
 " Me ? " Bella shook back her mane. 
 
 Her cousin considered her with an impersonal eye, whose 
 expression she did not understand to be the artist's gauge 
 and measure. 
 
 32
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 33 
 
 " Bella," he said shortly, " I'm going to make a cast 
 of your foot." 
 
 She was sitting on the sofa and drew her feet under her. 
 
 " Only just my foot, Cousin Antony, not all of me ? " 
 
 " Come now," said the sculptor, " it won't take long. 
 It's heaps of sport." 
 
 He unrolled the paper parcel he had brought, unfolding 
 a mass of snowy, delectable looking powder. 
 
 " Ask old Ann to fetch us a couple of basins, deep 
 ones, some water and a little oil and salt." 
 
 When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs 
 of the four-storied house, the things had been fetched, 
 Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly watched by the children. 
 Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded over the 
 foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles 
 she saw art fall like a star a genius blossom like a 
 flower. She gazed at Antony's hands as they plunged 
 in and came out dripping; gazed as though she expected 
 him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had 
 called to life. His shirt sleeves rolled up over his fine 
 arms, his close high-cropped and sunny hair warm upon 
 his brow, his eyes sparkling, he bent an impassioned face 
 over the milky plaster. 
 
 " Now," Fairfax said, " hurry along, Bella, I'm 
 ready ! " 
 
 She responded quietly. "I'm here. It's like a snow 
 pie, Cousin Antony." 
 
 " Take off your shoe and stocking." 
 
 " Cousin Antony ! " 
 
 A painful flush of red, the drawing under her more 
 closely of the little legs, showed how far she had been from 
 comprehending. 
 
 " Casts are taken from life, Bella," informed her 
 cousin practically, "you'll see. I'm going to make a 
 model from life, then watch what happens. I reckon you're 
 not afraid, honey?" 
 
 Gardiner kicked his foot out from under the rugs. 
 " Do mine." 
 
 With the first timidity Antony had seen her display, 
 Bella divested herself of her shoe and drew off her dark 
 stocking, and held him out the little naked foot, a charm- 
 ing, graceful concession to art.
 
 34 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " It's clean," she said simply. 
 
 He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and 
 coral thing in his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured 
 artistic ecstasies. Fairfax deftly oiled the foot, kneeling 
 before it as at a shrine of beauty. He placed it in one of 
 the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, sternly 
 bidding her to control her giggles and her " ouches " as 
 it could not harm. 
 
 " Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster 
 sets." 
 
 " Oh, it's setting already," she told him, " hard ! 
 You won't break off my foot, Cousin Antony ? " 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 Whilst the cast set he recited for them " St. Agnes's 
 Eve," a great favourite with the children, beyond their 
 comprehension, but their hearts nevertheless stirred to 
 the melody. As Fairfax leant down to break the model 
 Bella helped him bravely. 
 
 " Now, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony ? " 
 
 He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould 
 and had forgotten her, and was reproached. 
 
 The twilight gathered and made friends with the 
 storm as they waited for the cast to harden. Old Ann 
 came in and lighted the gas above the group on the old 
 divan. 
 
 "Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here 
 a power of a dirt." 
 
 Fairfax, who had taken a fancy to the patient old 
 creature, who had known his mother and was really more 
 a slave to the children than his own black Mammy, bore 
 the scolding peacefully. 
 
 " Ye're the childest of the three, sor." 
 
 Antony caught her arm. "Wait and see, old Ann," 
 and he kneeled before the cooled plaster and broke his 
 model, released his work and held up the cast. 
 
 "For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's 
 foot ye've got, sor." 
 
 She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as 
 though she expected to see a missing member. Bella 
 danced around it, pleaded for it, claimed it. Gardiner 
 was allowed to feel how cold it was, and Fairfax took 
 it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 35 
 
 with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had 
 the feeling that Mr. Carew would some day smash every- 
 thing for him. That night when she undressed Bella 
 regarded with favour the foot that had been considered 
 worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster 
 which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax 
 limped home to the House that Jack Built, his heavy 
 step lighter for the fairy foot, the snow-white, perfect 
 little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HE was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of 
 all he saw, and, being sincere, he made his lines true, and 
 then outlined the sketch, softening, moulding, moulding. 
 . . . His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she was kind to him, 
 affectionate, and called him " her dear boy ") was to Fairfax 
 only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of 
 Mrs. Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced 
 to her arguments, admired her in her multitudinous 
 toilettes, in all of which she was original, found her lovely 
 and graceful. Her eyes were deer-like not those of a 
 startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands gazing at a 
 perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. 
 Mrs. Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax 
 at twenty-three, knew less of it, and he could not criticize 
 her vision. He saw his uncle through Bella's eyes, but 
 he never passed the master of the house in the halls, 
 taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to 
 associate fear with Bella; her father had not impressed 
 her free mind with this sentiment. 
 
 " Father," she told Antony, " is the most important 
 man in New York City, the cook said so. He might be 
 President, but he doesn't want to; he likes hia own work 
 best. Father's work is making money, and he quite 
 understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there 
 is so little in the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook 
 hadn't a cent when I asked her to lend me a penny. 
 We used to have five cents a week, but now mother has 
 to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when 
 there are treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you 
 ought to do your share. That is why Gardiner and I 
 always stick around together and say we don't like 
 children. . . . No," she said firmly, " I really couldn't 
 
 36
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 37 
 
 take five cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. 
 We're bound in honour not to; we promised never to 
 take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a stranger, 
 and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, 
 Cousin Antony/' 
 
 Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to 
 the magic car, as it waited with its lean horses and jingle- 
 jangle to take the lady " sharping," that day she borrowed 
 two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a pauper, had always 
 money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else to 
 keep it and having none to keep elsewhere. The two 
 dollar bill went to join ghostly company with the drawing 
 lessons money, and fluttered away to the country of unpaid 
 bille, of forgotten obligations, of benefits forgot, and it is to 
 be wondered if souls are ever at peace there. 
 
 "Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour/ 
 When Ann comes to rub Gardiner's feet at night (they 
 are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she told me about 
 father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't 
 understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I 
 don't know what they are, but they're very important) 
 and they call him 'your honour,' and Ann says it's all 
 because of his soul. He never breaks his word, and when 
 the bills come in . . ." 
 
 The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day 
 after day. Because his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided 
 Gardiner's inert fingers across the page and almost tied 
 Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with the 
 household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen 
 with a healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been 
 pausing at the end of a half-hour's torture when Bella 
 took up her monologue on her father's character. 
 
 " When the billi come in he shuts himself in the 
 library. I hear him walk up and down; then he comes 
 out with his face white, and once, long past dinner-time, 
 when mother didn't come in, he said to me, ' Where in 
 heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left 
 in the shops to buy ? ' just that, he asked me that, 
 Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry. I was just going 
 to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart." 
 
 That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, 
 and at so tender an age could see and comprehend, could
 
 38 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 pity, struck Fairfax, and on his part he began to see many 
 things, but being a man and chivalrous, he pitied the 
 woman as well. 
 
 " My aunt is out of her element," he decided ; " she 
 cannot be in love with her husband; no woman who 
 loved anything on earth could gad about as she does/' 
 and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an 
 artificial wilderness became more and more of a symbol 
 of her. 
 
 Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax 
 had not made up his mind. 
 
 Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. 
 Carew assured . Antony, " at the door of death," and 
 Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. Carew 
 lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did 
 countless errands for his aunt. One day, toward the 
 end of the little boy's convalescence, Fairfax came in 
 late and heard the sound of a sweet voice singing. He 
 entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. 
 Mrs. Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born 
 voices, heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices 
 that cause an ache and go to the very marrow, that make 
 the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony was there, and 
 liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, 
 closing with " Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let 
 her hands rest on the keys. Fairfax went over to the 
 piano. 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt 
 Caroline ? " The emotion her songs had kindled remained 
 in his voice. 
 
 " Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like 
 music." 
 
 " Damn," said the young man sharply ; " I beg your 
 pardon. You've got the family talent; your voice is 
 divine." 
 
 She was touched but shook her head. " I might have 
 sung possibly, if your uncle had ever cared for it. He'll 
 be back to-morrow and I thought I'd just run these things 
 over." 
 
 As she rose and left the piano he observed how young 
 she was, how graceful in her trailing dress. The forced
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 39 
 
 housing of these weeks of Gardiner's illness had quieted 
 the restless spirit. Mrs. Carew was womanly to him, 
 feminine for the first time since his arrival. It was at 
 the end of his tongue to say, " Why did you ever marry 
 that man ? " He thought with keen dislike of the 
 husband whose appearance would close the piano, silence 
 the charming voice, and drive his aunt to find occupation 
 in the shops and in charities. He became too chivalrous. 
 
 " Flow gently, sweet Afton," as sung by her, echoed 
 thence afterwards in his mind all his life. The melody 
 was stored in the chambers of his memory, and whenever, 
 in later years, he tried not to recall 700 Madison Avenue, 
 and the inhospitable home, maddeningly and plaintively 
 these tunes would come : " Roll on, silver moon," that too. 
 How that moon rolled and hung in the pale sky of remem- 
 brance, whose colour and hue is more enchanting than 
 ever were Italian skies ! 
 
 Mrs, Carew had an audience composed of two people. 
 Little Gardiner, up and dressed in his flannel gown, and 
 the big cousin fathering him with a protecting arm, both 
 in the sofa corner. Mrs. Carew's mellow voice on those 
 winter afternoons before Bella returned, before Mr. Carew 
 came back from the Club, flowed and quavered and 
 echoed sweetly through the room. In the twilight, 
 before the gas came, with old-fashioned stars set in the 
 candelabra, the touching pathos of the ballads spoke to 
 the romantic Fairfax . . . spoke to his twenty-three 
 years and spoke dangerously. He became more and 
 more chivalrous and considered his aunt a misunderstood 
 and unloved woman. Long, long afterwards, a chord, a 
 note, was sufficient to bring before him the square drawing- 
 room with its columns, furnish with an agglomeration of 
 gaudy, rich, fantastic things expressive of her uncertain 
 taste. He saw again the long dark piano and the 
 silhouette of the woman behind it, graceful, shadowy, and 
 felt the pressure against his arm of little Gardiner, as they 
 two sat sympathetically lifted to an emotional pitch, stirred 
 as only the music of a woman's voice in love-songs can stir 
 a man's heart. 
 
 Bella came back and there was an end of the concerts. 
 A charm to keep Bella silent had not yet been found, 
 unless that charm were a book. " She could not read
 
 40 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 when mother sang," she said, " and more than that, it 
 made her cry." And when Mr. Carew's latchkey scratched 
 in the door, Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony 
 and Gardiner followed more slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her 
 piano, and took the cars again to forget her restlessness 
 in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house decora- 
 tions, and was far from guessing the emotion she had 
 aroused in the breast of her nephew " Flow gently, 
 sweet Afton." Nothing flowed gently in Fairfax's im- 
 petuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide of 
 events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, 
 without any opening into fame.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CEDERSHOLM returned to New York and Fairfax presented 
 himself again at the studio, getting as far as the workroom 
 of the great Swede who had started in life the son of a 
 tinsmith in Copenhagen. The smell of the clay, the sight 
 of the figures swathed in damp cloths, the shaded light, 
 struck Fairfax deliciously as he waited for an audience with 
 Cedersholm. Fairfax drew his breath deep as though he 
 were once again in his element. Cedersholm was out, 
 and with no other encouragement than the sight of the 
 interior of the four walls, Antony was turned away. 
 His mother had added to his fast melting funds by a 
 birthday gift, and Fairfax was nearly at the end of this. 
 
 Walking up from Cedersholm's to his uncle's house, a 
 tramp of three miles, he limped into the children's room, 
 on his usually bright face the first shadow they had seen. 
 Bella was already seated at her table. Her six weeks 
 in the country had sent her back, longer, slimmer, her 
 skirt let down at the hem an inch, and some pretence to 
 order in her hair. The dark mass of her hair was lifted 
 back, held by a round comb ; Bella was much transformed. 
 
 " Hello, honey/' cried her cousin, " what have you 
 been changing into ? " 
 
 " What do you think of my back comb, Cousin Antony ? 
 It's the fourth. I've broken three. All cheap, luckily, 
 not the best quality ." 
 
 Bella took the comb from her hair and handed it to 
 Antony, and, unprisoned, her locks fell triumphantly 
 around her face. 
 
 " I like you better that way, little cousin," said Fair- 
 fax, " and," continued the drawing master, " you've a won- 
 derful new pair of shoes, Bella ! " 
 
 The little leg was encased in a light blue silk stocking, 
 
 41
 
 42 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 and the perfect little foot, whose rosy curves and lines 
 Fairfax knew, was housed in a new blue kid shoe with 
 shining white buttons, entirely out of keeping with the 
 dear old red dress which, to Fairfax, seemed part of 
 Bella Carew. 
 
 "Dancing school/' she said briefly; "mother promised 
 us we might go ages ago, long before you came, Cousin 
 Antony." 
 
 " About ten years ago, I fink," said Gardiner helpfully. 
 
 " Nonsense," corrected his sister sharply, " but long 
 enough ago for these to grow too small." She held up 
 her pretty foot. " We got as far as the shoes and stockings 
 (real silk, Cousin Antony, feel). Aren't they perfectly 
 beautiful? We didn't dare, because of the bills, get 
 the dress, you know, so I guess mother's been waiting 
 for better times. But just as soon as I came back from 
 the country and they let out the hem and bought the 
 comb, I said to Gardiner, ' There, my dancing shoes will 
 be too small.' '' She leant down and pinched the toes. 
 " They do squeeze." She crinkled up her eyes and 
 pursed up the little red mouth. " They pinch awfully, 
 but I'm going to wear them to drawing lessons, if I can't 
 to dancing lessons. See," she smoothed out her drawing 
 board and pointed to her queer lines, " I have drawn some 
 old things for you, a couple of squares and a triangle." 
 
 Faixfax listened, amused; the problems of his life were 
 vital, she could not distract him. He took the rubber, 
 erasing her careless work, sat down by her and began to 
 give her real instruction. Little Gardiner, excused from 
 all study, amused himself after his own fashion in a corner 
 of the sofa, and after a few moments of silence, Fairfax's 
 pupil whispered to him in a low tone 
 
 " I can't draw anything, Cousin Antony, when you've 
 got that look on." 
 
 Fairfax continued his work. 
 
 "It's no use, you've got the heavy look like the heavy 
 step. Are you angry with me ? " 
 
 Not her words, but her voice made her cousin stop 
 his drawing. In it was a hint of the tears she hated to 
 shed. Bella leant her elbow on the table, rested her head 
 in her hand and searched Fairfax's face with her eloquent 
 eyes. They were not like her mother's, doe-like and
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 43 
 
 patient; Bella's were dark eyes, superb and shadowy. 
 They held something of the Spanish mystery, caught 
 from the strain that ran through the Carew family from 
 the Middle Ages, when the Carez were nobles in 
 Andalusia. 
 
 " I am angry with myself, Bella ; I am a fool." 
 
 " Oh no, you're not" she breathed devotedly, " you're 
 a genius." 
 
 The tension of Fairfax's heart relaxed. The highest 
 praise that any woman could have found, this child, in 
 her naivete, gave him. 
 
 " Why don't you make some figures and sell them, 
 Cousin Antony ? Are you worried about money troubles ? " 
 She had heard these terms often. 
 
 " Yes," he said shortly, " just that." 
 
 He had gone on to sketch a head on the drawing- 
 board, touching it absently, and over his shoulder Bella 
 murmured 
 
 " Cousin Antony, it's just like me. You just draw 
 wonderfully." 
 
 He deepened the shadows in the hair and rounded the 
 ear, held it some way off and looked at it. 
 
 " I wish I had some clay," he murmured. 
 
 He had brought the cast of the foot back to show it 
 to his aunt when an occasion should offer. It stood now 
 in the little cabinet where Bella and Gardiner kept their 
 treasures. 
 
 " I went to see Mr. Cedersholm to-day," Fairfax 
 continued, for lack of other confidant taking the dark- 
 eyed child; "now, if Cedersholm would only take me up, 
 and give me the chance to work under him, I'd soon 
 show him." 
 
 Bella agreed warmly. " Yes, indeed, you soon would."
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 THE odours of strange meats and sauces were wafted 
 throughout the house. Little troublesome feet pattered 
 up and down the dingy back stairs, and whenever Bella 
 and Gardiner were laid hold upon they were banished. 
 They were inoculated with excitement and their nostrils 
 pricked with the delicious smells of flowers and smilax 
 and feast meats. 
 
 Mr. Carew annually gave a banquet to some twenty 
 New Yorkers, who he was so generous as to think were 
 nearly as great as himself. The household was not con- 
 structed or run on a hospitable basis and nothing was in 
 tune for entertaining. Sympathetic Bella, thrilling with 
 liveliest interest, assisted at the preparations, and to 
 her bright cheeks and eyes her mother bewailed 
 
 " Only twenty glasses, Bella, of the fine engraved deer 
 and pheasant pattern, and we shall be twenty-four." 
 
 " Mother, give me one in a paper and I'll take it down 
 town and match it." 
 
 Her mother laughed. " Match it, why they were 
 made by hand years ago, and are worth ten dollars 
 apiece/' 
 
 " Oh, dear," breathed the little girl, and multiplied : 
 "Two hundred dollars for twenty. Mother!" 
 
 The child stole silently out from the glistening array. 
 Ten dollars apiece. And she and Gardiner at their last 
 nursery tea-party . . . Through the door, as she slipped 
 away, she looked back at her mother, standing thoughtful 
 over the rows of crystal. In the great mahogany cage 
 which, like a small dark chateau, surmounted the pedestal 
 of carved wood, the blackbird Jetty huddled on his perch. 
 He was a superb specimen, black as jet, whence his name, 
 a free woodland spirit, with a yellow bill like a crocus 
 
 44
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 45 
 
 flower, and piercing eyes. Bella passed under the cage 
 and called up to him, " Sing, Jetty, sing." 
 
 Piped a blackbird from a beechwood spray, 
 " Little maid, slow wandering this way, 
 What's your name?" said he. 
 
 Little Bell had wandered through the glade, 
 She looked up between the beechwood's shade, 
 " Little Bell," said she. . . . 
 
 The child crooned to the bird her schoolroom poem. 
 In return, Jetty sang a short, brilliant little roulade, his 
 one drained tune, which Bella had vainly tried to pick 
 out on the piano. She never heard half so sweet a song 
 from any bird. 
 
 " Jetty is my favourite singer," she had said to 
 Antony. But as she lingered now under his cage in order 
 to lengthen out the time, which, because of her aching 
 conscience, was hanging heavy, Jetty blinked down at 
 her as she stood with her hands behind her back, her face 
 uplifted; he peered at her like a weird familiar spirit. 
 " Listen, Jetty. Gardiner and I took those perfectly 
 beautiful, expensive glasses for our tea party. He 
 smashed all three of them. There was a glass for Gardiner, 
 a glass for me and one for the uninvited guest no, I mean 
 the unexpected guest. Gardiner sat down on the glasses 
 where I had put them out to wash them. He would have 
 been awfully cut only he had father's overcoat on (one 
 of father's old coats, we got it out of the camphor chest)." 
 She ceased, for Jetty, in the midst of the confession, 
 hopped down to take a valetudinarian peck at his yellow 
 seeds. 
 
 " Now," murmured Bella, " the question is, shall I 
 tell mother on an exciting day like this when she is 
 worried and nervous, and, if I do tell her, wouldn't it 
 be carrying tales on poor little Gardiner ? " 
 
 Jetty, by his food cup, disheartened and discouraged 
 and apparently in a profound melancholy, depressed Bella ; 
 she left him, turned and fled. 
 
 Bella picked a forbidden way up the freshly oiled 
 stairs and joined her little brother. There she listened 
 to tales, danced on tiptoe to peer through the stair rails, 
 and hung with Gardiner over the balustrade and watched
 
 46 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 and listened. The children flew to the window to see the 
 cabs and carriages drive up, fascinated by the clicking 
 of the doors, finding magic in the awning and the carpet- 
 ing that stretched down the stoop to the curb; found 
 music in the voices below in the hallway as the guests 
 arrived. Bella could hardly eat the flat and unpalatable 
 supper prepared for her on the tray, and, finally, she 
 seized her little brother. 
 
 " Come, let's go down and see the party, Gardiner." 
 
 She dragged him after her, half-reluctant and wholly 
 timid. On the middle of the stairway she paused. The 
 house below was transformed, hot and perfumed with 
 flowers, the very atmosphere was strange. Along the 
 balustrade, their hands touched smilax garlands. The 
 blaze of light dazzled them, the sweet odours, the gaiety 
 and the spirit of cheer and life and good-fellowship came 
 up on fragrant wings. The little brother and sister stood 
 entranced. The sound of laughter and men's agreeable 
 voices came soaring in, the gaiety of guests at a feast, and, 
 over all rose a sound most heavenly, a low, thrilling, 
 thrilling sound. 
 
 Jetty was singing. 
 
 The children knew the blackbird's idyl well, but it 
 was different this night. They heard the first notes rise 
 softly, half stifled in his throat, where Jetty caressed his 
 tune, soothed it, crooned with it, and then, preluded by a 
 burst all his own of a few adorable silver notes, the trained 
 melody came forth. 
 
 " Oh, Gardiner," breathed the little girl, " hear Jetty. 
 Isn't it perfectly beautiful ? " 
 
 They stepped softly on downstairs, hand in hand, into 
 the lower rooms, over to the dining-room where the thick 
 red curtains hung before the doorway. Gardiner wore 
 his play apron and his worsted bed slippers. Bella 
 neither the little brother nor the old nurse had observed 
 that Bella had made herself a toilette. The dark hair 
 carefully brushed and combed, was tied back with a 
 crimson ribbon, and below her short dress shone out her 
 dancing school blue stockings and her tight blue shoes. 
 Peering through the curtains, the children could see the 
 dinner company to their hearts' content. Bella viewed 
 the great New Yorkers, murmuring under her breath the
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 47 
 
 names and wondering to whom they belonged. Judge 
 Noah Davis, famous for the breaking of the Tweed ring 
 him, Bella knew, he was a frequent caller. There was a 
 prelate of the Church and there was some one whom 
 Bella wanted especially to see Cedersholm, Mr. Ceders- 
 holm which could he be? Which might he be? Little 
 Gardiner's hand was hot in hers. He whispered beseech- 
 ingly 
 
 " Come, Bella, come, I'm afwaid." 
 
 " Hear Jetty, Gardiner, be quiet." 
 
 And the bird's voice nearly drowned the murmur and 
 the clamour of the dining-room. Mr. Carew, resplendent 
 in evening clothes, displayed upon his shirt front the 
 badge of the Spanish Society (a golden medal hung by 
 a silken band). It was formed and founded by the banker 
 and he was proud of his creation. 
 
 "Who would ever suppose that father didn't like 
 company ? Whoever would think that you could be afraid 
 of father ! " 
 
 Suave, eloquent, Carew beamed upon his guests, and 
 his little daughter admired him extravagantly. His hair 
 and beard were beautiful. Touching the medal on his 
 breast, Carew said 
 
 " Carez is the old name, Cedersholm/' 
 
 Cedersholm ! Bella stared and listened. 
 
 " Yes, Carez, Andalusian, I believe, to be turned later 
 in England into Carew; and the has relief is an excellent 
 bit of sculpturing." 
 
 Mr. Carew undid the medal and handed it to the guest 
 on his right. 
 
 " Here, Cedersholm, what do you think of the bas 
 relief?" 
 
 Cedersholm, already famous in New York, faced 
 Bella Carew and she saw him plainly. This was the 
 sculptor who could give Cousin Antony his start, "his 
 fair chance." He did not look a great man, as Bella 
 thought geniuses should look; not one of the guests 
 looked as great and beautiful as Cousin Antony. Why 
 didn't they have him to the dinner, she wondered loyally. 
 Hasn't he got money enough? Perhaps because he was 
 lame. 
 
 Jetty was lame. He had broken his leg in the bars
 
 48 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 once upon a time. How he sang! From his throat 
 poured one ecstatic roulade after another, one cascade 
 after another of liquid delicious sweetness. Fields, 
 woods, copses, and dells; sunlight, moonlight, seas and 
 streams, all, all were in Jetty's passion of song. 
 
 Gardiner had left his sister's side and stood under the 
 bird-cage gazing up with an enraptured face. He made a 
 pretty, quaint figure in the deserted room, in his gingham 
 apron and his untidy blonde hair. 
 
 Bella heard some one say, "What wonderful singing, 
 Mrs. Carew." And she looked at her mother for the 
 first time. The lady was all in white with a bit of old 
 black point crossed at her breast and a red camellia 
 fastened there. Her soft fine hair was unpretentiously 
 drawn away neatly, and her doe-like eyes rested amiably 
 on her guests. She seemed to enjoy her unwonted 
 entertainment. 
 
 Still Bella clung to her hiding-place, fascinated by the 
 subdued noise of the service, the clinking of the glasses, 
 listening intelligently to a clever raconteur when he told 
 his anecdote, and clapping her hand on her mouth to 
 keep from joining aloud in the praise that followed, and 
 the bead of excitement mounted to her head like the 
 wine that filled the glasses, the engraved deer and pheasant 
 glasses, three of which had been massacred upstairs. The 
 dinner had nearly reached its end when the children 
 slipped down, and the scraping of chairs and a lull made 
 Bella realize where she was, and when she escaped she 
 found that Gardiner had made his little journey upstairs 
 without her guardianship. Bella's mind was working 
 rapidly, for her heart was on fire with a scheme. In her 
 bright dress she leaned close to the dark wainscoting of 
 the stairway and heard Jetty sing. How he sang ! That 
 was music ! 
 
 " Why do people sing when there are birds ! " Bella 
 thought. Low and sweet, high and fine, the running of 
 little country brooks, unattainable as a weather vane in 
 the sun. 
 
 Bella was at a pitch of sensitive emotion and she felt 
 her heart swell and her eyes fill. She would have wept 
 ignominiously, but instead shot upstairs, a red bird 
 herself, and rushed to the cabinet where her childish 
 treasures were stored away.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE sculptor Cedersholm had come from Sweden himself 
 a poor boy. He had worked his way into recognition and 
 fame, but his experience in life had embittered rather than 
 softened him. He early discovered that there is nothing 
 but example that we can learn from the poor or take from 
 the poor, and he avoided everything that did not add to 
 his fame and everything that did not bring in immediate 
 aids. It was only during the late years that he had made 
 his name known in New York. He had been working in 
 Rome, and during the past three years his expositions 
 had made him enormously talked of. He would not have 
 dined at the Carews' without a reason. Henry Carew 
 was something of a figure in the Century Club. His 
 pretence to dilettantism was not small. But Cedersholm 
 had not foreseen what a wretched dinner he would be 
 called on to eat. Cooked by a woman hired in for the 
 day, half cold and wholly poor, Mr. Carew's banquet was 
 far from being the magnificent feast it seemed in Bella's 
 eyes. Somewhat cheered by his cigar and liqueur, 
 Cedersholm found a seat in a small reception room out of 
 earshot of his host and hostess, and, in company with 
 Canon Prynne of Albany, managed to pass an agreeable 
 half hour. 
 
 The Canon agreed with the Swede he had never heard 
 a bird sing so divinely. 
 
 " I told Mrs. Carew she should throw a scarf over the 
 cage. The blackbird will sing his heart out." 
 
 The sculptor took up his conversation with his friend 
 where he had left it in the dining-room. He had been 
 speaking of a recent commission given him by the city 
 for an important piece of work to be done for Central 
 Park. 
 
 49
 
 50 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "You know, Canon, we have succeeded in bringing 
 to the port of New York the Abydos Sphinx a mar- 
 vellous, gigantic creature. It is to be placed in Central 
 Park, in the Mall." 
 
 This, Canon Prynne had heard. " The base pedestal 
 and fixtures are to be yours, Cedersholm ? " 
 
 The sculptor nodded. " Yes, and manual labour such 
 as this is tremendous. If I were in France, now, or in 
 Italy, I could find chaps to help me. As it is, I work 
 alone." After a pause, he said, " However, I like the 
 sole responsibility." 
 
 " Now, I am not sure," returned his companion, 
 " whether it is well to like too sole a responsibility. As 
 far as 7 am concerned, no sooner do I think myself im- 
 portant than I discover half a dozen persons in my en- 
 vironment to whom I am doing a wrong, if I do not invite 
 them to share my glory." 
 
 There was no one in the small room to which the 
 gentlemen had withdrawn, and their chat was suddenly 
 interrupted by a small, clear voice asking, " Is this Mr. 
 Cedersholm ? " Neither guest had seen steal into the 
 room and slip from the shadow to where they sat, a little 
 girl, slender, overgrown, in a ridiculously short dress, 
 ridiculous shoes and stockings, her arms full of treasures, 
 her dark hair falling around her glowing cheeks, in terror 
 of being caught and banished and punished; but ardent 
 and determined, she had nevertheless braved her father's 
 displeasure. Bella fixed her eyes on the sculptor and said 
 rapidly 
 
 " Excuse me for coming to father's party, but I am in 
 a great hurry. I want to speak to you about my Cousin 
 Antony. He is a great genius," she informed earnestly, 
 "a sculptor, just like you, only he can't get any work. 
 If he had a chance he'd make perfectly beautiful things." 
 
 The other gentleman put out his hand and drew the 
 child to him. Unused to fatherly caress, Bella held back, 
 but was soon drawn within the Canon's arm. She held 
 out her treasures : " He did these," and she presented to 
 Cedersholm the white cast of her own foot. 
 
 " Cousin Antony explained that it is only a cast, and 
 that anybody could do it, but it is awfully natural, isn't 
 it ? only so deadly white."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 51 
 
 She held out a sheet of paper Fairfax had left at the 
 last lesson. It bore a sketch of Bella's head and several 
 decorative studies. Cedersholm regarded the cast and the 
 paper. 
 
 " Who is Cousin Antony, my child ? " asked the Canon. 
 
 " Mother's sister's son, from New Orleans Antony 
 Fairfax." 
 
 Cedersholm exclaimed, " Fairfax ; but yes, I have a 
 letter from a Mr. Fairfax. It came while I was in France." 
 
 The drawing and the cast in Cedersholm's possession 
 seemod^to have found their home. Bella felt all was well 
 for Cousin Antony. 
 
 " Oh, listen ! " she exclaimed, eagerly, " listen to our 
 blackbird. Isn't it perfectly beautiful?" 
 
 " Divine indeed," replied the clergyman. " Are you 
 Carew's little daughter ? " 
 
 "Bella Carew. And I must go now, sir. Arabella is 
 my real name." 
 
 She slipped from under the detaining arm. "Nobody 
 knows I'm up. I'll lend you those," she offered her 
 treasures to Cedersholm, " but I am very fond of the foot." 
 
 It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said 
 kindly 
 
 " I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin 
 Antony that I shall be glad to see him ? " 
 
 " Oh, thank you," she nodded. " And he'll be very 
 glad to see you." 
 
 Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper 
 back in her hands. 
 
 " I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin, 
 shall make me others." 
 
 As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests 
 as if the blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while 
 Jetty stopped singing. 
 
 " What a quaint, old-fashioned little creature," Ceders- 
 holm mused. 
 
 " Charming," murmured Canon Prynne, " perfectly 
 charming. Now, my dear Cedersholm, there's your fellow 
 for the Central Park pedestal."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. 
 Some time since, he had given up riding in the cars, and 
 walked everywhere. This exercise was the one thing that 
 tired him, because of his unequal stride. Nevertheless, 
 he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap 
 like himself could come to want, he finally reached his 
 last "picayune," and at the same time owed the week's 
 board and washing. The excitement of his new life thus 
 far had stimulated him, but the time came when this 
 stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his 
 uncle's house to be greeted on the stoop by a beggar 
 woman, huddling by her basket under her old shawl, the 
 sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which she 
 hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he 
 exclaimed 
 
 " I wonder, old lady, just how poor you are ? " 
 
 "Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for 
 sale for a cint, I couldn't buy it." 
 
 Beneath his breath he murmured, " Nor could I," and 
 thought of his watch. Curiously enough, it had not oc- 
 curred to him that he might pawn his father's watch. 
 
 He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri- 
 weekly drawing lessons, for the friendly fires of his little 
 cousins' hearts warmed his own. But on this afternoon 
 they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him over 
 the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected 
 corners. As he went through the silent house its unusual 
 quiet struck him forcibly, and he thought : " What a 
 tomb it would be without the children ! " 
 
 No one responded to his " Hello you/' and at the 
 entrance of the common play and study room Fairfax 
 paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their play aprons, 
 
 52
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PKIDE 53 
 
 their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one 
 dark head and one light one bent over an object appar- 
 ently demanding tender, reverent care. 
 
 At Fairfax's " Hello you all ! " they turned, and the 
 big cousin never forgot it as long as he lived never 
 forgot the Bella that turned, that called out in what the 
 French call " a torn voice " une voix dechiree. After- 
 wards it struck him that she called him " Antony " tout 
 court, like a grown person as she rushed to him. He never 
 forgot how the little thing flung herself at him, threw 
 herself against his breast. For an answer to her appeal 
 with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent nnd 
 took her hand. 
 
 " Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony " 
 
 "Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what'i the 
 matter?" 
 
 And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, 
 he asked of Gardiner who, young as he was, stifled his 
 tears back and gulped his own grief like a man 
 
 " What's the row, old chap ? " 
 
 But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, Jetty's 
 dead ! " 
 
 Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, 
 buried her face in the cool handkerchief with which he 
 wiped her tears. In the circle of his arms Bella stood, 
 tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she appealed 
 to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her 
 abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell 
 which from thenceforth rang like her name " Bella " 
 and he used to think that it was from that moment . . . 
 Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as never did any 
 tears in the world. 
 
 She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang 
 himself to death. You should have heard him sing! 
 This morning when they came to give him water and feed 
 him, Jetty was dead." 
 
 Gardiner pointed to the table. " See, we've made him 
 a coffin. We're going to his funewal now." 
 
 A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only 
 coffin the children had found for the wild wood creature 
 whose life had gone out in song. 
 
 " We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony."
 
 54 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " I tried/' Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's 
 breast with gentle fingers, " I tried to write him a poem, 
 an epitaph ; but I cried so I couldn't." 
 
 She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained 
 cheek. 
 
 " May I keep your handkerchief for just this after- 
 noon? It smells so delicious. You could make a cast 
 of him, couldn't you ? like the death-mask of great men 
 in father's books ? " 
 
 Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which 
 Gardiner was to say, " Now I lay me," and Fairfax had 
 been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. He rolled the 
 bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich 
 in them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, 
 promising faithfully to see that Jetty should be buried 
 in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under the snow, and, more- 
 over, to mark the place with a stick, so that the children 
 could find it when spring came. 
 
 Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that 
 they should play " going to Siberia." 
 
 " I can't work to-day, Cousin Antony ! Don't make me. 
 It would seem like sewing on Sunday." 
 
 Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine 
 inconsistency, and himself entered, with what spirit he 
 might, into the children's game. " Going to Siberia " 
 laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It was a 
 mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his 
 arms, pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over 
 beds and chairs, around tables, a wild, screaming, 
 excited journey, ending at last in the farthest room in 
 the middle of the children's bed, where, one after another, 
 they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was 
 enriched by Fairfax's description of Russia and the 
 steppes and the plains. But on this day Bella insisted 
 that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the wolf, and 
 that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And 
 if Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual 
 zest to the sport, the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a 
 new emotion ! The twining round his neck of soft arms, 
 the confusion of dark hair against his face, the flower-like 
 breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries 
 and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 55 
 
 charm. Chased by Ann back into the studio, the play- 
 mates fell on the sofa, worn out and happy; but, in the 
 momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of him, the 
 poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries 
 and his own crisis. 
 
 " Misther Fairfax/' said the Irish woman, " did the 
 childhren give ye the letter what come to-day? I thawt 
 Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid funnerals and tearin' 
 like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof was 
 for Fairfax.) " Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, 
 sir, tKe* both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I 
 putt it there m'self." 
 
 Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, 
 limped over to the mantel, where, by the clock, he per- 
 ceived a letter addressed to him on big paper in a small, 
 distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the gas, and 
 he read 
 
 " DEAR MR. FAIRFAX, 
 
 " I have not answered your letter because I 
 was so unfortunate as to have lost your address. Learn- 
 ing last night that you are a nephew of Mr. Carew, and 
 sure of a response if I send this to his care, I write to ask 
 that you will come in to see me to-day at three o'clock. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 " GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." 
 
 Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, 
 and looked at the clock. It was past four ! 
 
 " When did this letter come ? " His nerves were on 
 end, his cheeks pale. 
 
 Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave 
 it me to give to you when you should come to-day, Cousin 
 Antony." 
 
 In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He 
 bit his lip, snatched up his coat and hat. 
 
 " You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes 
 flashed. " You don't know what you may have done. 
 This may ruin my career ! I've missed my appointment 
 with Cedersholm. It's too late now." 
 
 He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella 
 could regain countenance, he was gone.
 
 56 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonish- 
 ment, but more deeply wounded in her pride, the child 
 at immovable on the sofa. 
 
 " Bella/' whispered her little brother, " I don't like 
 Cousin Antony, do you ? " 
 
 She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's 
 chivalry. 
 
 " I fink he's a mean man, Bella." 
 
 " He's dreadful," she cried, incensed ; " he's just too 
 horrid for anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm 
 write that letter for him, and he didn't even say he was 
 obliged." 
 
 She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he 
 always did, on the other side of the road, in order that the 
 children might see him. She hoped for a reconcilement, 
 or a soothing wave of his hand ; but Antony did not pass, 
 the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. 
 At her foot for as Antony had snatched up his coat he 
 had wantonly desecrated a last resting-place at her foot 
 lay the blackbird. With a murmured word Bella lifted 
 Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold breast 
 and toneless throat the tears fell Bella's first real tears.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FAIRFAX went into the studio of the first sculptor in the 
 United States with set determination to find work. 
 Ceder&holm was cool and absorbed, occupied and pre- 
 occupied, overburdened with orders, all of which meant 
 money and fame, but required time. Fairfax was an 
 hour and a half late, and, in spite of the refusal of the 
 manservant, came limping in, and found the master 
 taking a glass of hot milk and a biscuit. Cedersholm 
 reposed on a divan in the corner of a vast studio giving on 
 a less magnificent workroom. The studio was in semi- 
 darkness, and a table near the sofa bore a lamp whose 
 light lit the sculptor's face. To Fairfax, Cedersholm was 
 a lion and wore a mane. In reality, he was a small, 
 insignificant man who might have been a banker. The 
 Southerner introduced himself, and when he was seated 
 by the sculptor's side, began to expose his projects, to 
 dream aloud. He could have talked for ever, but the 
 sum of what he said was that he wanted to enter Ceders- 
 holm's studio. 
 
 " The old Italians took subordinates, sir/' he pleaded. 
 
 " There are classes at Cooper Union," Cedersholm 
 began. 
 
 But Fairfax, his clear eyes on the artist, said, "But I 
 want to work under a genius." 
 
 The other, complimented, pushed his milk aside and 
 wiped his lips. 
 
 "Well, of course, there is plenty of hard work to be 
 done right here in this studio." He spoke cautiously and 
 in a measured tone. " I have workmen with me, but no 
 artists." 
 
 Fairfax patiently waited. He was as verdant as the 
 young jasmine leaves, as inexperienced and guileless as a 
 child. 
 
 57
 
 58 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " I had not thought of taking such an assistant as you 
 represent, Mr. Fairfax." The older man fixed him with 
 clever eyes. " A man must have no end of courage in him, 
 no end of patience, no end of humility, to do what you say 
 you want to do." 
 
 The young man bowed his head. " Courage, patience, 
 and humility are the attributes of genius, sir." 
 
 " Yes," admitted Cedersholm, " they are, but ordinary 
 talent will do very well in my workshop, and it is all that 
 I need in a subordinate." 
 
 Fairfax smiled lightly. " I think I may say I am a 
 good worker, Mr. Cedersholm. Any hod-carrier may 
 say that without vanity, and if you turn me out, I'll take 
 a mason's place at two dollars a day." 
 
 Cedersholm smiled. " You don't look like a mason," 
 he said hesitatingly, " though you do appear muscular. 
 What would be your suggestion with regard to our re- 
 lations?" 
 
 (Fairfax's eager heart was saying, " Oh, teach me, 
 Master, all you know; let me come and play with the 
 clay, finger it, handle it; set me loose in that big, cool, 
 silent room beyond there; let me wander where I can see 
 the shadow of that cast and the white draped figure from 
 where I sit.") 
 
 " You are a fairly good draftsman ? " Cedersholm 
 asked. " Have you any taste for decoration and applied 
 design ? " 
 
 " I think I have." 
 
 The Master rose. " Come to-morrow morning at ten 
 and I'll give you something to do. I have just accepted 
 a contract for interior decoration, a new house on Fifth 
 Avenue. I might possibly make you useful there." 
 
 Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth 
 Street, where the studio was, to his boarding-house, in 
 the cold, still winter night a long tramp. In spite of 
 his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat on the 
 back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As 
 he passed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental 
 stars. He no longer shivered at the cold and, warm with 
 faith and confidence, his heart could have melted a storm. 
 He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by his side the
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 59 
 
 spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do 
 beautiful things for New York city. He would become 
 great here. He would garland the metropolis with laurel, 
 leave statues on its places, that should bear his name. 
 At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to begin his 
 apprenticeship, and he would soon show his power to 
 Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, 
 like nectar, and in his veins the spirit of creation, the 
 impulse to art, rose like a draught. His aunt should be 
 proud of him, his uncle should cease to despise him, and 
 the children they would not understand but they 
 woulcfrlJe glad. 
 
 When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie 
 opened the door and cried out at the sight of his face 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Antony ; you've had good news, sir." 
 
 He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her 
 roundly on both cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his 
 cool fresh lips, and the kiss was as chaste as an Alpine 
 breeze. 
 
 He cried : " Good news ; well, I reckon I have ! The 
 great Mr. Cedersholm has given me a place in his studio." 
 
 He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss 
 Eulalie's glasses were pushed up on her forehead she 
 might have been his grandmother. 
 
 " The Lord be praised ! " she breathed. " I have been 
 praying for you night and day." 
 
 " I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not 
 spoken about terms, but that will be all right, and if you 
 ladies will be so good as to wait until Saturday " 
 
 Of course they would wait. If it had not been that 
 their means were so cruelly limited, they would never have 
 spoken. Didn't he think ? . . . He knew ! he thought 
 they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune hunter 
 could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in 
 the papers Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor ! Wait 
 until they could go with him to the unveiling of his work 
 in Central Park! 
 
 Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked 
 to them both until they could hardly wait for the wonders ! 
 
 " When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony ? " 
 
 " Forget them ! " 
 
 Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax
 
 60 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 held out a hand to each, and the little old ladies each laid 
 a fluttering hand in his. But it was at Miss Eulalie he 
 looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss on this 
 first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal 
 than she had ever hoped to be in her life. 
 
 There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note 
 in a big envelope with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's 
 bank in the corner. It was addressed to him in red ink. 
 He didn't know the handwriting, but guessed, and laughed, 
 and drew the letter out. 
 
 "DEAR COUSIN ANTONY, 
 
 " I feel perfectly dreadful. How could I do 
 such a selfish thing? I hope you will forgive me and 
 come again. I drew two whole pages of parlel lines after 
 you went away, some are nearly strait. I did it for 
 punishment. You forgot the blackbird. 
 
 "Your little BELLA." 
 
 What a cad he had been ! He had forgotten the dead 
 bird and been a brute to the little living cousin. As the 
 remembrance of how she had flown to him in her tears 
 came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like a veil 
 over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his 
 art. He smiled at the childish signature, " Your little 
 Bella" " Honey child ! " he murmured, and as he fell 
 asleep that night the figure of the little cousin mourning 
 for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of 
 fame.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BEFORE Fairfax became dead to the world he wrote his 
 inotheiua letter that made her cry, reading it on her 
 veranda in the gentle sunlight. Her son wrote her only 
 good news, and when the truth was too black he disguised 
 it. But after his interview with Cedersholm, with these 
 first good tidings he had to send, he broke forth into 
 ecstasy, and his mother, as she read, saw her boy success- 
 ful by one turn of the wheel. Mrs. Fairfax laughed and 
 cried over the letter. 
 
 " Emmy, Master Tony's doing wonders, wonders ! 
 He is working under a great genius in the North, but it 
 is easy to see that Tony is the spirit of the studio. He is 
 at work from nine in the morning till dark, poor honey 
 boy! and he is making all the drawings and designs and 
 sketches for a millionaire's palace on Fifth Avenue." 
 
 " Fo' de Lawd, Mis' Bella." 
 
 " Think of it, we shall soon see his name in the papers 
 heaven knows where he'll stop. How proud I am of mj 
 darling, darling boy." 
 
 And she dreamed over the pages of Antony's closely- 
 written letter, seeing his youth and his talent burn there 
 like flame. She sent him selling her watch and her drop 
 earrings to do so a hundred dollars, all she could get for 
 her jewels. And the sum of money came like manna into 
 his famished state. His mother's gift gave him courage 
 to rise early and to work late, and the silver sang in his 
 waistcoat pockets again, and he paid his little ladies, 
 thanking them graciously for their patience; he sent his 
 aunt a bunch of flowers, bought an image of the Virgin 
 for old Ann, a box of colours for Gardiner, and a book for 
 Bella. 
 
 Then Antony, passing over the threshold of the work- 
 shop, was swallowed up by art. 
 
 61
 
 62 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 And he paid for his salt ! 
 
 How valuable he was to Cedersholm those days he 
 discovered some ten years later. Perched on his high 
 stool at the drawing-table, his materials before him, he 
 drew in freehand what his ideas suggested. The third 
 day he went with Cedersholm to the palace of Rudolph 
 Field on Fifth Avenue to inspect the rooms to be decorated. 
 Fairfax went into the " Castle of the Chinking Guineas " 
 (as he called it in writing to his mother), as buoyantly as 
 though he had not a leaking boot on one foot and a bill 
 for a cheap suit of clothes in his pocket. He mentally 
 ranged his visions on the frieze he was to consider, and as 
 he thought, his own stature seemed to rise gigantic in the 
 vast salon. He was alone with Cedersholm. The Fields 
 were in Europe, not to return until the palace had been 
 made beautiful. 
 
 Cedersholm planned out his scheme rather vaguely, 
 discoursing on a commonplace theme, indicating ceilings 
 and walls, and Fairfax heard him through his own medita- 
 tions. He impulsively caught the Master's arm, and 
 himself pointing, " Just there," he said, " why not . . " 
 And when he had finished, Cedersholm accepted, but with- 
 out warmth. 
 
 " Perfectly. You have caught my suggestions, Mr. 
 Fairfax," and poor Antony shut his lips over his next 
 flight. 
 
 In the same week Cedersholm left for Florida, and 
 Fairfax, in the deserted studio, sketched and modelled 
 a sa /aim, as the French say, as old Professor Dufaucon 
 used to say, and as the English say, less materially, " to 
 his soul's content." February went by in this fashion, 
 and Fairfax was only conscious of it when the day came 
 round that he must pay his board and had nothing to do 
 it with. Cedersholm was to return in a few days, and he 
 would surely be reimbursed to what extent he had no 
 notion. His excitement rose high as he took an inventory 
 of his work, of his essays and drawings and bas reliefs, 
 his projects for the ceiling of the music room. At one 
 time his labour seemed of the best quality, and then 
 again so poor, so abortive, that the young fellow had more 
 than half a mind to destroy the lot before the return of 
 the Master. During the last week he had a comrade, a
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 63 
 
 great, soft-eyed, curly-locked Italian, who didn't speak a 
 word of English, who arrived gentle as an ox to put him- 
 self under the yoke of labour. Antony, thanks to his 
 keenness and his gift for languages, and his knowledge of 
 French, made out something of what he was and from 
 where. He had been born in Carrara and was a worker in 
 marble in his own land, and had come to work on the 
 fountain for the music room in the Field palace. 
 
 " The fountain ! " Fairfax tumbled over his sketches 
 and showed one to his brown-eyed friend, who told him 
 rapidly that it was "divinely beautiful," and asked to 
 see the"clay model. 
 
 None had been made. 
 
 The same night, Fairfax wrote to Oedersholm that he 
 had begun a model of the fountain, and in the following 
 days was up to his ears and eyes in clay. 
 
 The block of marble arrived from Italy, and Fairfax 
 superintended its difficult entry by derrick through the 
 studio window. He restrained " Benvenuto Cellini," as 
 he called his comrade, from cutting into the marble, and 
 the Italian used to come and sit idle, for he had no work 
 to do, and waited Cedersholm's orders. He used to come 
 and sit and stare at his block of marble and sing 
 pleasantly 
 
 " Aria pura 
 
 Cielo azuro 
 
 Mia Maddelena," 
 
 and jealously watch Fairfax who could work. Fairfax 
 could and did, in a long blouse made for him by Miss 
 Mitty, after his directions. With a twenty-five cent 
 book of phrases, Fairfax in no time mastered enough 
 Italian to talk with his companion, and his own baritone 
 was sweet enough to blend with Benvenuto Cellini's 
 " Mia Maddelena," and other songs of the same character, 
 and he exulted in the companionship of the young man, 
 and talked at him and over him, and dreamed aloud to 
 him, and Benvenuto, who had only the dimmest idea of 
 what the frenzy meant not so dim, possibly, for he knew 
 it was the ravings of art supplied the " bellisimos " and 
 " grandiosos," and felt the spirit of the moment, and was 
 young with Fairfax, if not as much of a soul or a talent.
 
 64 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 The model for the fountain was completed before 
 Cedersholm's return. After a month's rest under the 
 palms of Florida, the sculptor lounged into the studio, 
 much as he might have strolled up a Paris boulevard and 
 ordered a liqueur at a round table before some favourite 
 cafe. Cedersholm had hot milk and biscuits in a corner 
 instead, and Fairfax drew off the wet covering from his 
 clay. Cedersholm enjoyed his light repast, considering 
 the model which nearly filled the corner of the room. 
 He fitted in an eyeglass, and in a distinguished manner 
 regarded the modelling. Fairfax, who had been cold 
 with excitement, felt his blood run tepid in his veins. 
 
 " And your sketches, Fairfax ? " asked the Master, and 
 held out his hand. 
 
 Fairfax carried him over a goodly pile from the table. 
 Cedersholm turned them over for a long time, and finally 
 held one out, and said 
 
 " This seems to be in the scale of the measurements 
 of the library ceiling ? " 
 
 Fairfax's voice sounded childish to himself as he re- 
 sponded 
 
 " I think it's correct, sir, to working scale." 
 
 " It might do with a few alterations," said Cedersholm. 
 " If you care to try it, Fairfax, it might do. I will order 
 the scaffolding placed to-morrow, and you can sketch it 
 in, in charcoal. It can always come out, you know. 
 You might begin the day after to-morrow." 
 
 The Master rose leisurely and looked about him. 
 "Jove," he murmured, "it's good to be back again to 
 the lares and penates." 
 
 Fairfax left the Master among the lares and penates, 
 left him amongst the treasures of his own first youth, the 
 first-fruits of his ardent young labour, and he went out, 
 not conscious of how he quivered until he was on his way 
 up-town. What an ass he was ! No doubt the stuff was 
 rubbish! What could he hope to attain without study 
 and long apprenticeship? Why, he was nothing more 
 than a boy. Cedersholm had been decent not to laugh 
 in his face Cedersholm's had been at once the kindest 
 and the cruelest criticism. He called himself a thousand 
 times a fool. He had no talent, he was marked for 
 failure. He would sweep the streets, however, and lay
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 65 
 
 bricks, before he went back to his mother in New Orleans 
 unsuccessful. His letters home, his excitement and 
 enthusiasm, how ridiculous they seemed, how fatuous his 
 boastings before the old ladies and little Bella ! 
 
 Fairfax passed his boarding-house and walked on, and 
 as he walked he recalled what Cedersholm had said the 
 day he engaged him : " Courage, patience, humility." 
 These words had cooled his anger as nothing else could 
 have done, and laid their salutary touch on his flushed 
 face. 
 
 " Tjtese qualities are the attributes of genius. 
 Mediocrity is incapable of possessing them." He 
 would have them all, every one, every one ! Courage, 
 he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. 
 Humility he had despised the poor fellow did not know 
 that its hand touched him as he strode. 
 
 " I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," 
 he thought. " I daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at 
 my abortions ! " 
 
 Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at 
 the Carews' doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told 
 him to draw it on the Field ceiling. This meant that he 
 had another chance. 
 
 "It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, 
 enthusiastically, as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Bella opened the door to him.
 
 CHAPTEE XVII 
 
 THE following year in January lying on his back on 
 the scaffolding, Fairfax drew in his designs for the 
 millionaire's ceiling, freely, boldly, convincingly, and 
 it is doubtful if the eye of the proprietor he was a 
 fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had made 
 money out of hog's lard it is doubtful that Mr. Field's 
 eyes, when gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax 
 thought he drew. 
 
 Fairfax whistled softly and drew and drew, and his 
 cramped position was painful to his left leg and thigh. 
 Benvenuto Cellini came below and sang up at him 
 
 " Cielo azuro, 
 Giornata splendida 
 Ah, Maddelena," 
 
 and told him in Italian about his own affairs, and Fairfax 
 half heard and less than half understood. Cedersholm 
 came once, bade him draw on, always comforting one of 
 them at least, with the assurance that the work could be 
 taken out. 
 
 During the following weeks, Fairfax never went back 
 to the studio, and one day he swung himself down when 
 Cedersholm came in, and said 
 
 " I'm a little short of money, sir." 
 
 Cedersholm put his hand in his pocket and gave 
 Antony a bill with the air of a man to whom money is as 
 disagreeable and dangerous as a contagious disease. 
 The bill was for fifty dollars, and seemed a great deal 
 to Antony; then a great deal too little, and, in 
 comparison with his debts, it seemed nothing at all. 
 
 66
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 67 
 
 Cedersholm had followed up his payment with an 
 invitation to Antony to come to Ninth Street the following 
 day. 
 
 " I am sketching out my idea for the pedestal in Cen- 
 tral Park. Would you care to see it? It might interest 
 you as a student." 
 
 The ceiling in Rudolph Field's house is not all the 
 work of Antony Fairfax. Half-way across the ceiling he 
 stopped. It is easy enough to see where the painting is 
 carried on by another hand. He finished the has reliefs 
 at the^-end of March, and the fine frieze running round the 
 little music-room. Mr. Field liked music little and had 
 his room in proportion. 
 
 Antony stood with Cedersholm in the studio where he 
 had made his scheme for the fountain and his first 
 sketches. Cedersholm's design for the base of the 
 pedestal, designed to support the winged victory, was 
 placed against the wall. It was admirable, harmonious, 
 noble. 
 
 Fairfax had seen Cedersholm work. The sculptor 
 wore no apron, no blouse. He dressed with his usual 
 fastidiousness; his eyeglass adjusted, he worked as 
 neatly as a little old lady at her knitting, but his work 
 had not the quality of wool. 
 
 " What do you think of it, Fairfax? " 
 
 Fairfax started from his meditation. " It's immense," 
 he murmured. 
 
 " You think it does not express what is intended ? " 
 Cedersholm's clever eyes were directed at Fairfax. 
 " What's the matter with it? " 
 
 Without reply, the young man took up a sheet of 
 paper and a piece of charcoal and drew steadily for a few 
 seconds and held out the sheet. 
 
 " Something like this . . . under the four corners . . . 
 wouldn't it give an idea ... of life? The Sphinx is 
 winged. Doesn't it seem as if its body should rest on 
 life?" 
 
 If Cedersholm had in mind to say, " You have quite 
 caught my suggestion," he controlled this remark, covered 
 his mouth with his hand, and considered he considered 
 for a day or two. He then went to Washington to talk 
 with the architects of the new State Museum. And
 
 68 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 Fairfax once more found the four walls of the quiet 
 studio shutting him in ... found himself inhabiting with 
 the friendly silence and with the long days as spring began 
 to come. 
 
 He finished the modelling of his four curious, original 
 creatures, beasts intended to be the supports of the 
 Sphinx. He finished his work in Easter week, and wrote 
 to Cedersholm begging for his directions and authority 
 to have them cast in bronze.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE four beasts were of heroic size. They came out of 
 the moulds like creatures of a prehistoric age. Benvenuto 
 CellifiT, who was to have met his friend Antony at the 
 foundry on the day Fairfax's first plaster cast was 
 carried down, failed to put in an appearance, and 
 Fairfax had the lonely joy, the melancholy, lonely joy, 
 of assisting at the birth of one of his big creatures. All 
 four of them were ultimately cast, but they were to 
 remain in the foundry until Cedersholm's return. 
 
 His plans for the future took dignity, and import- 
 ance, from the fact of his success, and he reviewed 
 with joy the hard labour of the winter, for which in all 
 he had been paid one hundred dollars. He was in need 
 of everything new, from shoes up. He was a great dandy, 
 or would have liked to have afforded to be. As for a spring 
 overcoat well, he couldn't bear to read the tempting 
 advertisements, and even Gardiner's microscopic coat, 
 chosen by Bella, caused his big cousin a twinge of envy. 
 Bella's new outfit was complete, a deeper colour glowed 
 on the robin-red dress she wore, and Fairfax felt shabby 
 between them as he limped along into the Park under the 
 budding trees, a child's hand on either arm. 
 
 " Cousin Antony, why are there such delicious smells 
 to-day?" 
 
 Bella sniffed them. The spring was at work under 
 the turf, the grass was as fragrant as a bouquet. 
 
 " Breathe it in, Cousin Antony ! It makes you wish 
 to do heaps of things you oughtn't to ! " 
 
 On the pond the little craft of the school children flew 
 about like butterflies, the sun on the miniature sails. 
 
 " What kind of things does the grass cutter, shearing 
 off a few miserable dandelions, make you want to do, 
 
 69
 
 70 
 
 Bella? You should smell the jasmine and the oleanders 
 of New Orleans. These are nothing but weeds/' 
 
 " How can you say so ? " she exclaimed ; " besides, 
 most of the things I want to do are wicked, anyhow." 
 
 " Jove ! " exclaimed Fairfax. " That is a confession." 
 
 She corrected. " You ought not to say ' Jove ' like 
 that, Cousin Antony. You can cut it and make it sound 
 like ' Jovah,' it sounds just like it." 
 
 " What wicked things do you want to do, Bella ? " 
 
 She pointed to the merry-go-rounds, where the 
 giraffes, elephants, and horses raced madly round to the 
 plaintive tune of " Annie Laurie," ground out by a 
 hurdy-gurdy. 
 
 " I'd love to go on." 
 
 Fairfax put his hand in his pocket, but she pulled it 
 back. 
 
 "No, Cousin Antony, please. It's not the money that 
 keeps me back, though I haven't any. It's Sunday, you 
 know." 
 
 " Oh," her cousin accepted dismally. 
 
 And Bella indicated a small boy carrying a tray of 
 sweets who had advanced towards the three with a hopeful 
 grin. 
 
 " I'd perfectly love to have some of those lossingers, 
 but mother says ' street candy isn't pure.' Besides, it's 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " exclaimed Fairfax. " Do you mean to 
 say that out here in God's free air you are going to preach 
 me a sermon ? " 
 
 He beckoned the boy. 
 
 " Oh," cried Gardiner, " can't we choose, Cousin 
 Antony?" 
 
 The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and 
 passionately selected, and their absorption in the essence 
 of wintergreen, sassafras, and peppermint showed him 
 how much this pleasure meant to these rich children. 
 Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again. 
 
 " I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with 
 you, Cousin Antony," Bella told him. 
 
 " Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. " You 
 must ride once on the merry-go-round." And before the 
 little Puritans realized the extent of their impiety, Fairfax
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 71 
 
 had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an elephant, 
 paid their fare and started them away. He watched 
 Bella, her hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on 
 the first round, her cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, 
 and bravely her straight little arm stretched out to catch 
 the ring. There was triumph in her cry, " Oh, Cousin 
 Antony, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring ! " 
 
 Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her 
 teeth like grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded 
 and smiled at him ! Poor little Gardiner ! Antony paid 
 for h in* again and patted him on the back. There was a 
 pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the timid, 
 ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron 
 ring on to his sword. Bella rode till " Annie Laurie " 
 changed to " Way down upon de Swanee river," and 
 Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had come to 
 the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down. 
 
 Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and 
 clung to him. 
 
 " Think of it, I never rode before, never ! All the 
 children on the block have, though. Isn't it perfectly 
 delightful, Cousin Antony? I wish your legs weren't so 
 long." 
 
 " Cousin Antony/' asked little Gardiner, " couldn't 
 we go over to the animals and see the seals fall off and 
 dwown themselves ? " 
 
 They saw the lion in his lair and the " tiger, tiger 
 burning bright," and the shining, slippery seals, and 
 they made an absorbed group at the nettings where 
 Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed 
 about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild 
 beast show in Cesar's arena. His audience shivered at 
 his side. 
 
 They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw 
 for the first time the Mall, and observed that the earth 
 was turned up round a square some twelve feet by twelve. 
 He half heard the children at his side; his eyes were 
 fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; 
 the stone base would soon be raised there, and then his 
 beasts would be poised. 
 
 " Let's walk over to the Mall, children." 
 
 Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn
 
 72 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 .up with their teams; little landaus, fairy-like for small 
 folk to drive in. Fairfax stood before the cavity in the 
 earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. He was 
 conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging 
 on his arms of their too affectionate weight. " Cousin 
 Antony/' 
 
 Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. " Oh, Egypt, 
 Egypt/' he began, in his " recitation voice," a voice 
 that promised treats at home, but that palled in the 
 sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground. 
 
 " Out of the soft, smooth coral of thy sands, 
 Out of thy Nilus tide, out of thy heart, 
 Such dreams have come, such mighty splendours " 
 
 Bella, do you see that harmonious square ? " 
 
 "Yes," she answered casually, with a lack lustre. 
 " And do you see the goats ? " 
 
 " Goats, Bella ! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, 
 and on it at its four corners, before they poise the Sphinx 
 what do you think I see, Bella ? " 
 
 ". . . Cousin Antony, that boy there has the sweetest 
 goats. They're almost clean! Too dear for anything! 
 With such cunning noses ! " 
 
 He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little 
 girl's shoulder and turned her round. 
 
 " I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," 
 he said. 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Antony." 
 
 " Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful 
 bronze creatures, are to be eternally set there, there 
 before your eyes." He pointed to the blue May air. 
 
 " Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, " the 
 only thing I'm not too tired to do is to wide in a goat 
 carwage." 
 
 Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift 
 you, Gardiner, like this, high in my arms, you could 
 just about see the top of the pedestal. Wait till it's 
 unveiled, my hearties ! Wait wait ! " 
 
 He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, 
 and then he saw the goats. 
 
 " Do you want a ride, children ? "
 
 73 
 
 "Did they!" 
 
 He ran his hands through the pockets that had been 
 wantonly emptied. 
 
 " Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead 
 broke." 
 
 " Then," said Bella, practically, " let's go right away 
 from here, Cousin Antony. I can't bear to look at those 
 goats another minute. It hurts." 
 
 Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the 
 Desirous," he murmured. "What are you going to be 
 when you grow up, little cousin ? " 
 
 They" started slowly away from temptation, away from 
 the vision of the pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and 
 the apparition of the Sphinx seemed to brood over them 
 as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's wisdom could 
 have answered the question Fairfax put : " What are you 
 going to be when you grow up, little Bella ? " 
 
 Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a 
 whisper said 
 
 " He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin 
 Antony." 
 
 " Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. " We 
 couldn't get on without him, could we, old chap ? " 
 
 But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen 
 asleep as soon as his head touched his cousin's shoulder. 
 
 When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised 
 at Bella's melancholy. She held out to him the sticky 
 remnant of the roll of lozenges. 
 
 " Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it." 
 
 " But what on earth's the matter ? " he asked. 
 
 " Never mind," she said heroically, " you don't have 
 to bear it. You're Episcopalian; but I've got to tell!" 
 She sighed heavily. " I don't care ; it was worth it ! " 
 
 As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax 
 laughed. 
 
 " What a little trump she is ! She thinks the game is 
 worth the candle ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THAT miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual 
 strain of standing long at his work, the tramps he took to 
 save car-fare, wearied him, and he was finally laid up for 
 ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and the long, 
 painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little 
 landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra 
 money and wonderful letters breathing pride in him and 
 confidence in his success. When he was finally up and 
 setting forth again to the studio, a visitor was announced. 
 Fairfax thought of Benvenuto (he would have been 
 welcome) he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt 
 Caroline. 
 
 " My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had 
 been ill?" 
 
 There is something exquisite to a man in the presence 
 of a woman in his sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old 
 or young. 
 
 " This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've 
 had a mighty bad time with this foot of mine." 
 
 Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's 
 shopping, came airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's 
 shoulder. Fairfax thought he saw a look of Bella, a look 
 of his mother. He eagerly leaned forward and kissed his 
 visitor. 
 
 " It's mighty good of you, Auntie." 
 
 "No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you 
 were ill. We would have sent you things from the 
 Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor." 
 
 She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way 
 to shop. She had something to say to him . . . 
 
 " What's wrong, Aunt Caroline ? " 
 
 His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her 
 
 74
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 75 
 
 dove-like eyes wandered about his room, bare save for 
 the drawings on the walls and on a chair in the corner, a 
 cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped 
 over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the 
 rings. 
 
 " I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony.'* 
 
 He repeated, in astonishment, "Of me why, Auntie, 
 anything that I can do . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor 
 thought. She made him think of a swan of a lily. Her 
 pale, ineffectual features had an old-fashioned loveli- 
 ness. 'He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured 
 devotedly 
 
 " You must let me do anything there is to do." 
 
 " I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. 
 " Y6ur uncle gives me so little money it's impossible to 
 run the establishment." 
 
 He exclaimed hotly, " It's a shame, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 " Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but 
 I like to dress the children well." 
 
 Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, 
 as though she confessed a readily-forgiven fault, 
 whispered 
 
 " I am so fond of bric-a-brac, Antony." 
 
 He could not help smiling. 
 
 " Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful 
 lamp for the front hall. I intended paying for it by 
 instalments ; but I've not been able to save enough 
 the men are waiting at the house. I can't tell your uncle, 
 I really can't. He would turn me out of doors." 
 
 Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the " Soul 
 of honour " confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. 
 His aunt's daily pilgrimage began to assume a picturesque- 
 ness and complexity that were puzzling. 
 
 " Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. " I can't see why 
 you married him." 
 
 Mrs. Carew, absorbed in the picture of the men waiting 
 in the front hall and the iron lamp waiting as well, did not 
 reply. 
 
 " How much do you need, Auntie ? " 
 
 " Only fifty dollars, my dear boy. I can give it back 
 next week when Henry pays me my allowance."
 
 76 FAIBFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 He exclaimed : " I am lucky to have it to help you out, 
 Auntie. I've got it right here." 
 
 The sense of security transformed Mrs. C'arew. She 
 laughed gently, put her hand on her nephew's shoulder 
 again, exclaiming 
 
 "How fortunate! Tony, how glad I am I thought of 
 you!" 
 
 He gave her all of his mother's gift but ten dollars, and 
 as she bestowed it carefully away she murmured 
 
 " It is a superb lamp, and a great bargain. You shall 
 see it lit to-night." 
 
 " I'm afraid not to-night, Aunt Caroline. I'm off to 
 see Cedersholm now, and I shan't be up to much, I 
 reckon, when I get back." 
 
 His visitor rose, and Fairfax discovered that he did not 
 wish to detain her as he had thought to do before she 
 had mentioned her errand. She seemed to have entirely 
 escaped him. She was as intangible as air, as unreal. 
 
 As he opened the door for her, considering her, he 
 said 
 
 "Bella looks very much like my mother, doesn't she, 
 Aunt Caroline ? " 
 
 Mrs. Carew thought that Bella resembled her father. 
 
 As Fairfax took his car to go down to Ninth Street, he 
 said to himself 
 
 " If this is the first sentimental history on which I am 
 to embark, it lacks romance from the start."
 
 CHAPTEE XX . 
 
 AT the studio he was informed by Cedersholm's man, 
 Charlej^that his master was absent on a long voyage. 
 
 " He has left me a letter, Charley, a note ? " 
 
 " Posted it, no doubt, sir." 
 
 Charley asked Mr. Fairfax if he had been ill. Charley 
 was thoroughly sympathetic with the Southerner, but he 
 was as well an excellent servant, notwithstanding that he 
 served a master whom he did not understand. 
 
 " I should like to get my traps in the studio, Charley." 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Fairfax." But Charley did not ask him in. 
 
 " I'll come back again to-morrow. . . . I'll find a note 
 at home." 
 
 " Sure to, Mr. Fairfax." 
 
 " Benvenuto been around ? " 
 
 The Italian had sailed home to Italy on the last week's 
 steamer. Fairfax, too troubled and dazed to pursue the 
 matter further, did not comprehend how strange it all 
 was. The doors of the studio were henceforth shut against 
 him, and Charley obeyed the mysterious orders given him. 
 There reigned profound mystery at the foundry. The 
 young man was sensible of a reticence among the men, 
 who lacked Charley's kindliness. Every one waited for 
 Cedersholm's orders. 
 
 The Beasts were cast. 
 
 " Look out how you treat those moulds," he fiercely 
 ordered the men. " Those colossi belong to me. What's 
 the damage for casting them ? " 
 
 At the man's response, Fairfax winced and thrust his 
 hands into his empty pockets. 
 
 Under his breath he said : " Damn Cedersholm for a 
 cold-blooded brute ! My youth and my courage have gone 
 into these weeks here." 
 
 77
 
 78 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 As he left the foundry he repeated his injunction about 
 the care of the moulds, and his personal tenderness for the 
 bronze creatures was so keen that he did not appreciate 
 the significant fact that he was treated with scant respect. 
 He stepped in at the Field palace on the way up-town, 
 and a man in an official cap at the door asked him for his 
 card of admission. 
 
 " Card of admission ? Why, I'm one of the decorators 
 here. ... I reckon you're new, my boy. I only quit work- 
 ing a fortnight ago." 
 
 He was nervous and pale ; his clothes were shabby. 
 
 " Sorry," returned the man, " my orders are strict 
 from Mr. Cedersholm himself. Nolody comes in without 
 his card." 
 
 The sculptor ground his heel on the cruel stones. 
 
 He had been shut away by his concentrated work in 
 Cedersholm's studio from outside interests. He had no 
 friends in New York but the children. No friend but his 
 aunt, who had borrowed of him nearly all he possessed, no 
 sympathizers but the little old ladies, no consolations but 
 his visions. In the May evenings,, now warm, he sat on 
 a bench in Central Park, listlessly watching the wind in 
 the young trees and the voices of happy children on their 
 way to the lake with their boats. He began to have a 
 proper conception of his own single-handed struggle. He 
 began to know what it is, without protection or home or 
 any capital, to grapple with life first-hand. 
 
 " Why, art is the longest way in the world/' he thought. 
 " It's the rudest and steepest, and to climb it successfully 
 needs colossal genius, as well as the .other things, and it 
 needs money." 
 
 He went slowly back to his lodging and his hall room. 
 Along the wall his array of boots, all in bad condition 
 his unequal boots and his deformity struck him and his 
 failure. A mist rose before his eyes. Over by the mirror 
 he had pinned the sketch he liked the best. 
 
 On Sunday afternoon, in his desire to see the children, 
 he forgot his distaste of meeting the master of the house, 
 and rang the bell at an hour when Carew was likely to be 
 at home. He had, too, for the first time, a wish to see the 
 man who had made a success of his own life. Whatever
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 79 
 
 his home and family were Carew was a success. Fairfax 
 often noted his uncle's name mentioned at directors' 
 meetings and functions where his presence indicated that 
 the banker was an authority on finance. Ever since 
 Mrs. Carew had borrowed money of him, Fairfax had been 
 inclined to think better of his uncle. As the door opened 
 before him now he heard singing, and though the music 
 was a hymn, it rolled out so roundly, so fully, so whole- 
 heartedly, that he knew his uncle must be out. 
 
 The three were alone at the piano, and the young 
 man's fc iace brightened at the sight of the children. On 
 either "side of their mother Bella and Gardiner were singing 
 with delight the little boy's favorite hymn. 
 
 " No parting yonder, 
 All light and song, 
 The while I ponder 
 And say ' how long 
 Shall time me sunder 
 From that glad throng?" 
 
 Curious how syllables and tones and inflections can con- 
 tain and hold our feelings, and how their memory makes a 
 winding-sheet. 
 
 Fairfax came in quietly, and the singers finished their 
 hymn. Then the children fell upon him and, as Gardiner 
 said, " Cousin Antony always did," he " gobbled them up." 
 
 " You might have told us you were ill," Bella reproved 
 him. " When I heard I made some wine jelly for you, 
 but it wobbled away, and Gardiner drank it." 
 
 "It wasn't weal wine," said the little boy, "or weal 
 jelly . . ." 
 
 Fairfax glanced toward his aunt, unconsciously looking 
 to her for comfort on this trying day. 
 
 Mrs. Carew was truly embarrassed at the sight of her 
 jreditor, but she continued to play lightly among the hymns, 
 and gave him up to the children. But Fairfax was too 
 desperate to be set aside. If there was any comfort any- 
 where he was going to have it. He said to his aunt in a 
 voice deepened by feeling 
 
 " Aunt Caroline, I'm a little down on my luck." 
 
 The lady turned her doe-like eyes on her nephew. " My 
 dear Tony . . ."
 
 80 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 He clenched his vigorous hands to keep down his 
 emotion. 
 
 "Yes. Cedersholm has turned his back on me, as far 
 as I can see." 
 
 With a short laugh he threw off his intense mood, thor- 
 oughly ashamed- of his weakness. 
 
 " Our branch of the family, Aunt Caroline, are unlucky 
 all round, I reckon." 
 
 There was one thought uppermost in his aunt's mind. 
 She had no money with which to pay her debt to him. 
 When there weren't lamps to buy there were rugs and 
 figures of biscuit Venuses bending over biscuit streams. 
 She had confessed her vice ; she " adored bric-a-brac." The 
 jumble in her mind made her eyes more vague than ever. 
 
 " Will you go back South ? " she wondered. 
 
 He started, spread out his empty hands. " Go back to 
 mother like this ? Auntie ! " 
 
 As ineffectual as she had been on the night of his arrival, 
 so now Mrs. Carew sat ineffectual before his crisis. She 
 breathed, " My poor boy ! " and her fingers strayed amongst 
 the keys and found the melody of the song he loved so 
 much. 
 
 The young traveller at her side was too much of a 
 man, even in his state of despair, to have expected a 
 woman to lift his burden. If she did, he did not think of 
 the money she owed him. What he wanted was a soothing 
 touch to be laid on his heart, and the song in which, not 
 six weeks before, he had nearly loved his aunt, did what 
 she did not. 
 
 The children had gone upstairs. Mrs. Carew sang 
 through the first verse of the song. As far as she was 
 concerned nothing could have been a greater relief. The 
 sympathy she did not know how to give, the debt she had 
 never discharged, the affection she had for Antony, and 
 her own self-pity, Mrs. Carew threw into her voice, and it 
 shook its tremulo through him. 
 
 He breathed devotedly : " Thank you, dear" and raised 
 one of his aunt's hands to his lips. 
 
 Mr. Carew had let himself in with his latchkey, and 
 was within a few feet of them as his wife finished her song.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 NEITHER Antony nor Mrs. Carew had the presence of 
 mind tCTstir. Mrs. Fairfax said of her brother-in-law that 
 he was a " vain creature whose pomposity stood in place 
 of dignity." Carew, at all events, came upon a scene 
 which he had never supposed would confront his eyes. 
 Before him in his own drawing-room, a whipper-snapper 
 from the South was kissing his wife's hands. To Carew 
 the South was the heart of sedition, bad morals, lacka- 
 daisical indolence. What the South could not do for him 
 in arousing his distaste, the word " artist " completed. 
 He said to his wife 
 
 " Is this the way you pass your Sabbath afternoons, 
 Mrs. Carew ? " 
 
 And before she could murmur, " My dear Henry " he 
 turned on Fairfax. 
 
 " Can't you find anything better to do in New York, 
 sir ? " He could not finish. 
 
 Fairfax rose. " Don't say anything you will regret, sir. 
 I kissed my aunt's hand as I would have kissed my mother's. 
 Not that I need to make excuse." 
 
 Mr. Carew's idea of his own importance, of the impor- 
 tance of everything that belonged to him, was colossal, and 
 it would have taken more than this spectacle, unpleasant 
 as it was, to make him fancy his wife harboured a senti- 
 ment for her jackanapes of a nephew. If the tableau he 
 had had time to observe on his way across the dining-room 
 floor had aroused his jealousy, that sentiment was less 
 strong that was his anger and his dislike. Young Fairfax 
 had been a thorn in his side for several weeks. 
 
 " You are wise to make no excuses," he said coldly. 
 " I could not understand your sentiments. I have my 
 own ideas of how a young man should employ his time 
 
 81
 
 82 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 and carve out his existence. Your romantic ideas are as 
 unsympathetic to me as was this exhibition." 
 
 Mrs. Carew, who had never been so terrified in her life, 
 thought she should faint, but had presence of mind 
 sufficient to realize that unconsciousness would be pre- 
 judicial to her, and by bending over the keys she kept her 
 balance. 
 
 She murmured, " My dear, you are very hard on 
 Antony." 
 
 Carew paid no attention to her. "Your career, sir, 
 your manner of life, are no affair of mine. I am con- 
 cerned in you as you fetch your point of view" (Carew 
 was celebrated for his extempore speaking), "your 
 customs and your morals into my house." 
 
 " Believe me," said Mrs. Fairfax's son, in a choked 
 voice, " I shall take them out of it for ever." 
 
 Carew bowed. "You are at liberty to do so, Fairfax. 
 You have not asked my advice nor my opinions. You 
 have ingratiated yourself with my friends, to my regret 
 and theirs." 
 
 Antony exclaimed violently, "Now, what do you mean 
 by that, sir?" 
 
 " I am in no way obliged to explain myself to you, 
 Fairfax." 
 
 " But you are ! " fairly shouted the young man. " With 
 whom have I ingratiated myself to your regret ? " 
 
 "I speak of Cedersholm, the sculptor." 
 
 "Well, what does he say of me?" pursued the poor 
 young man. 
 
 " It seems you have had the liberty of his workshop for 
 months " 
 
 "Yes," Antony calmed his voice by great effort, "I 
 have, and I have slaved in it like a nigger like a slave in 
 the sugar-cane. What of that ? " 
 
 The fact of the matter was that Cedersholm in the 
 Century Club had spoken to Carew lightly of Fairfax, and 
 ilightingly. He had given the young sculptor scant 
 praise, and had wounded and cut Carew's pride in a pos- 
 session even so remote as an undesirable nephew by 
 marriage. He could not remember what Cedersholm had 
 really said, but it had been unfortunate. 
 
 "I don't know what Cedersholm has said to you,"
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 83 
 
 cried Antony Fairfax, "nor do I care. He has sapped 
 my life's blood. He has taken the talent of me for three 
 long months. He is keeping my drawings and my designs, 
 and, by God " 
 
 " Stop ! " said Mr. Carew, sharply. " How dare you 
 use such language in my house, before my wife ? " 
 
 Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue 
 eyes on the older man, and as he did so the sense of his 
 own youth came to him. He was twenty years this man's 
 junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. 
 The desire to say to the banker, " If I should tell you 
 what * I" thought of you as a husband and a father," he 
 checked, and instead cried hotly 
 
 " God's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of 
 calling on Him is as good as another." 
 
 He extended his hand. It did not tremble. " Good- 
 bye, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "Henry," she 
 gasped, " he's Arabella's son." 
 
 Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the 
 banker's face. Fairfax limped out of the room. His 
 clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few moments 
 before, he had worked in them like a nigger), that, warm 
 as it was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat 
 lay in the hall. Bella and Gardiner had been busy during 
 his visit on their own affairs. They had broken open 
 their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's re- 
 mark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her 
 tender heart had recognized the heavy note in his voice. 
 The children's bank had been their greatest treasure 
 for a year or two. It represented all the " serious " 
 money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given 
 them. The children had been so long breaking it open 
 that they had not heard the scene below in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got 
 into it, thrust his hands in the pockets. They were full 
 of coin. His sorrow, anger and horror were so keen that 
 he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life. 
 
 " What's this ! " he cried, and emptied out his pockets 
 on the floor. The precious coins fell and rolled on every 
 side. Bella and her little brother, who had hid on the 
 stairs in order to watch the effect of their surprise, saw the
 
 84 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in anger. 
 The little girl flew down. 
 
 "Cousin Antony, how could you? It was for you! 
 Gardiner and I broke our bank for you. There were ten 
 dollars there and fifty-nine cents." 
 
 There was nothing gracious in Fairfax's face as it bent 
 on the excited child. 
 
 " Pick up your money/' he said harshly, his hand on 
 the door. " Good-bye." 
 
 " Oh/' cried the child, " I didn't know you were proud 
 like that. I didn't know." 
 
 " Proud," he breathed deeply. " I'd rather starve in the 
 gutter than touch a penny in this house." 
 
 He saw the flaming cheeks and averted eyes, and was 
 conscious of Gardiner's little steps running down the stairs, 
 and he heard Bella call " Cousin Antony," in a heart-rent 
 voice, as he opened the door, banged it furiously, and strode 
 out into the street.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 *.*,, 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HE had slept all night in a strained position between a 
 barrel of tallow candles and a bag of potatoes. In spite 
 of the hardness of the potatoes on which he lay and the 
 odour of the candles, he lost consciousness for a part of 
 the night, and when he awoke, bruised and weary, he 
 found the car stationary. As he listened he could not 
 hear a sound, and crawling out from between the sacks 
 in the car, he saw the dim light of early dawn through a 
 crack in the door. Pushing open the sliding door he 
 discovered that the car had stopped on a siding in an 
 immense railroad-yard and that he was the only soul 
 in sight. He climbed out stiffly. On all sides of him 
 ran innumerable lines of gleaming rails. The signal 
 house up high was alight and the green and yellow and 
 white signal lamps at the switches shone bright as stars. 
 Further on he could see the engine-house, where in lines, 
 their cow-catchers at the threshold, a row of engines 
 waited, sombre, inert horses of iron and steel, superb in 
 their repose. Fairfax reckoned that it must be nearly four- 
 thirty, and as he stood, heard a switch click, saw a light 
 change from green to red, and with a rattle and commo- 
 tion a train rolled in along and away. On the other 
 side of the tracks in front of him were barrack-like work- 
 shops, and over the closed station ran a name in black 
 letters, but it did not inform Fairfax as to his whereabouts 
 except that he was at " West Junction." He made his way 
 across the tracks towards the workshops, every inch of him 
 sore from his cramped ride. 
 
 85
 
 86 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He always thought that on that day he was as mentally 
 unhinged as a healthy young man can be. Unbalanced 
 by hunger, despair and rage, his kindly face was drawn 
 and bore the pallor of death. He was dirty and unshaven, 
 his heavy boot weighed on his foot like lead. Without 
 any special direction he limped across the tracks and 
 once, as he stopped to look up and down the rails on which 
 the daylight was beginning to glimmer, in his eyes was 
 the morbidness of despair. A signalman from his box 
 could see him over the yards, and Fairfax reflected that if 
 he lingered he might be arrested, and he limped away. 
 
 " Eome, Rome," he muttered under his breath, 
 "thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Thou hast 
 given to the timid shepherd-boy muscles of iron and a 
 heart of steel/' 
 
 The night before he had rushed headlong from his 
 uncle's house, smarting under injustice, and had walked 
 blindly until he came to the Forty-second Street station. 
 His faint and wretched spirit longed for nothing but 
 escape from the brutal city where he had squandered his 
 talent, crushed his spirit and made a poor apprenticeship 
 to ingratitude. A baggage car on the main line, with an 
 open door, was the only means of transportation of which 
 Fairfax could avail himself, and he had crept into it 
 undiscovered, stowed himself away, hoping that the 
 train's direction was westward and expecting to be 
 thrown out at any moment. Thus far his journey had 
 been made undiscovered. He didn't wonder where he 
 was he didn't care. Any place was good enough to be 
 penniless in and to jump off from! His one idea at the 
 moment was food. 
 
 " God ! " he thought to himself, " to be hungry like this 
 and not be a beggar or a criminal, just a duffer of a gentle- 
 man of no account ! " 
 
 He reached the engine-house and passed before the 
 line of iron locomotives, silent and vigorous in their 
 quiescent might, and full of inert power. He set his 
 teeth, for the locomotives made him think of his beloved 
 beasts. A choking sensation came in his throat and 
 tears to his blue eyes. He thrust his hands in the pockets 
 of his overcoat and went on. In front of him a city 
 street came down to the tracks, and sharp across it cut
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 87 
 
 the swinging gates which fell as Fairfax approached. 
 Behind him the switches snapped; another train, this 
 time a fast express, rushed past him. He watched it 
 mutely; the flinging up of the dust around the wheels, 
 the siss and roar and wind of its passing smote through 
 him. It was gone. 
 
 He limped on. The street leading down to the tracks 
 was filthy with mud and with the effects of the late rain. 
 It was to Fairfax an avenue into an empty and unknown 
 town. Small, vile, cobbled with great stones, the alley 
 ran between lines of two-storied frame buildings, tenement 
 houses' which were the home of the railroad employes. 
 The shutters were all closed, there was not a sign of life. 
 Fairfax came up with the signal-box by the swinging gate, 
 and a man with a rolled red flag stood in the doorway. 
 He looked at Fairfax with little curiosity and the young 
 man decided not to ask him any questions for fear that 
 his stolen ride should be discovered. As he passed on 
 and went into the empty street, he mused 
 
 " It is curious how we are all taking pains to escape 
 consequences to which we say we are indifferent. What 
 matter is it if he does arrest me? I should at least have 
 a cup of coffee at the station house." 
 
 On either side of the alley through which Fairfax now 
 walked there was not a friendly door open, or a shutter 
 flung back from a window. At the head of the street 
 Fairfax stopped and looked back upon the yards and the 
 tracks of the workshops. The ugly scene lay in the 
 mist of very early morning and the increasing daylight 
 made its crudeness each moment more apparent. As he 
 stood alone in Nut Street, on either side of him hundreds 
 of sleeping workmen, the sun rose over the yards, filling 
 the dreary, unlovely outlook with a pure glory. To 
 Fairfax's senses it brought no consolation but the sharp 
 suffering that any beauty brings to the poet and the seer. 
 It was a new day he was too young to be crushed out 
 of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he 
 was, hungry as he was, the visions began to rise again in 
 his brain. The crimson glory, as it swam over the rail- 
 road yards, over the bridge, over the unsightly buildings, 
 was peopled by his ideals his breath came fast and his 
 heart beat. The clouds from which the sun emerged
 
 88 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 took winged shapes and soared; the power of the iron 
 creatures in the shed seemed to invigorate him. Fairfax 
 drew a deep breath and murmured : " Art has made many 
 victims. I won't sacrifice my life to it." And he seemed 
 a coward to himself to be beaten so early in the race. 
 
 " Muscles of iron and a heart of steel/' he murmured 
 again, " a heart of steel" 
 
 He turned on his feet and limped on, and as he walked 
 he saw a light in an opposite window with the early 
 opening of a cheap restaurant. The shutters on either 
 side of Nut Street were flung back. He heard the clatter- 
 ing of feet, doors were pushed open and the workers began 
 to drift out into the day. Antony made for the light in 
 the coffee house; it was extinguished before he arrived 
 and the growing daylight took its place. A man from a 
 lodging-house passed in at the restaurant door. 
 
 Fairfax's hands were deep in the pockets of his over- 
 coat, his fingers touched a loose button. He turned it, 
 but it did not feel like a button. He drew it out ; it was 
 twenty-five cents. He had not shaken out quite all the 
 children's coins on the hall floor. This bit of silver had 
 caught between the lining and the cloth and resisted his 
 angry fling. As the young man looked at it, his face soft- 
 ened. He went into the eating-house with the other man 
 and said to himself as he crossed the door-sill 
 
 " Little cousin ! you don't know what ( serious ' 
 money this is ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A GIRL who he judged by her frowzled hair and her 
 heavy-eyes had just been aroused from sleep, stood behind 
 the counter pouring hot and steaming coffee into thick 
 china cups. The smell to the hungry man was divine. 
 Fairfax's mouth watered. From the one pot the coffee 
 came out with milk added, and from another the liquid 
 poured clear. Fairfax asked for coffee with milk and 
 a sandwich, and as the girl pushed the plate with hunks 
 of bread and ham towards him, he asked, " How much, 
 please ? " The girl raised her heavy lids. Her gray eyes 
 could have sparkled if she had been less sleepy. She 
 glanced at him and responded in a soft brogue 
 
 " Two cints a cup. Sandwiches two cints apiece." 
 
 He took his breakfast over to the table where a cus- 
 tomer was already seated before a huge breakfast. After 
 watching Fairfax for a few moments, this man said to 
 him 
 
 " Got a rattling good appetite, Mister." 
 
 "I have, indeed/' Fairfax returned, "and I'm going 
 to begin over again." 
 
 The man wore a red shirt under his coat, his battered 
 bowler was a-cock on his head. Antony often recalled 
 Sanders as he looked that morning. His face from his 
 neck up was clean. He exuded water and brown soap; 
 he had a bright healthy colour; he was a good-looking 
 workman, but his hands ! Fairfax thought them appalling 
 grimed with coal. They could never be washed clean, 
 Fairfax reflected, and one finger on the left hand was 
 missing. 
 
 "Stranger?" the man asked him. "Just going 
 through?" 
 
 And as Fairfax replied, he thought to himself, "He 
 
 89
 
 90 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 doesn't dream how strange I am and that I don't even 
 know the name of the town." 
 
 He asked the man, " Much going on here ? " 
 
 " Yards. Up here in West Albany it's nothing but yards 
 and railroading." 
 
 "Ah," nodded Fairfax, and to himself: "This is the 
 capital of New York State Albany that's where I am." 
 
 And it was not far enough away to please him. 
 
 The man's breakfast, which had been fed into him by 
 his knife, was disposed of, and he went on 
 
 " Good steady employment ; they're decent to you. 
 Have to be, good men are scarce." 
 
 A tall, well-set-up engineer came to the coffee counter, 
 and Fairfax's companion called out to him 
 
 " Got your new fireman yet, Joe ? " 
 
 And the other, with a cheerful string of oaths, responded 
 that he had not got him, and that he didn't want anybody, 
 either, who wasn't going to stay more than five minutes in 
 his cab. 
 
 " They've got a sign out at the yards," he finished, 
 "advertising for hands, and when I run in at noon I'll 
 call up and see what's doing." 
 
 Fairfax digested his meal and watched the entrance 
 and exit of the railroad hands. Nearly all took their 
 breakfast standing at the counter jollying the girl; only 
 a few brakemen and conductors gave themselves the 
 luxury of sitting down at the table. Antony went and 
 paid what he owed at the counter, and found that the 
 waitress had waked up, and, in spite of the fact that she 
 had doled out coffee and food to some fifty customers, she 
 had found time to glance at " the new one." 
 
 " Was it all right? " she asked. 
 
 She handed him the change out of his quarter. He had 
 had a dime's worth of food. 
 
 " Excellent," Fairfax assured her ; " first-rate." 
 
 Her sleeves came only to the elbow, her fore-arm was 
 firm and white as milk. Her hands were coarse and red; 
 she was pretty and her cheerfulness touched him. 
 
 He wanted to ask for a wash-up, but he was timid. 
 
 " I'll be back at lunchtime," he said to her, nodding, 
 and the girl, charmed by his smile, asked hesitatingly 
 
 "Workin'here?"
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 91 
 
 And as Fairfax said " No " rather quickly, she flushed 
 scarlet. 
 
 " Excuse me," she murmured. 
 
 He was as keen to get out of the restaurant now as he 
 had been to cross its threshold. The room grew small 
 around him, and he felt himself too closely confined with 
 these common workmen, with whom for some reason or 
 other he began to feel a curious fraternity. Once outside 
 the house, instead of taking his way into the more im- 
 portant part of West Albany, he retraced his steps down 
 Nut Street, now filled with men and women. Opposite 
 the gtfteman's house at the foot of the hill, he saw a sign 
 hanging in a window, " New York Central Railroad," 
 and under this was a poster which read, " Men wanted. 
 Apply here between nine and twelve/' 
 
 Fairfax read the sign over once or twice, and found 
 that it fascinated him. This brief notice was the only 
 call he had heard for labour, it was the only invitation 
 given him to make his livelihood since he had come North. 
 " Men wanted." 
 
 He touched the muscles of his right arm, and repeated 
 " Muscles of iron and a heart of steel." There was nothing 
 said on the sign about sculptors and artists and men of 
 talent, and poets who saw visions, and young ardent 
 fellows of good family, who thought the world was at their 
 feet; but it did say, "Men wanted." Well, he was a 
 man, at any rate. He accosted a fellow who passed him 
 whistling. 
 
 " Can you tell me where a chap can get a shave in this 
 neighbourhood ? Any barbers hereabouts ? " 
 
 The other grinned. " Every feller is his own razor in 
 Nut Street, partner! You can find barber shops up- 
 town." 
 
 "I want to get a wash-up," Fairfax said, smiling on 
 him his light smile. " I want to get hold of a towel and 
 some soap." 
 
 The workman pointed across the street. " There's a 
 hotel. They'll fix you up." 
 
 Fairfax followed the man's indication, and he saw the 
 second sign that hung in Nut Street. It gave the modest 
 information, " Rooms and board three dollars a week. 
 Room one dollar a week. All at Kenny's fL"t-class hotel.
 
 92 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Gents only." Of the proprietor who stood in the doorway, 
 and whose morning toilet had gone as far as shirt and 
 trousers, Antony asked 
 
 " How much will it cost me to wash-up ? I'd like 
 soap and a towel and to lie down on a bed for a couple of 
 hours." 
 
 The Irish hotel-keeper looked at him. Fairfax took 
 off his hat, and he didn't explain himself further. 
 
 "Well," said Patrick Kenny, "yez don't look very 
 dirthy. Charge fifteen cents. Pay in advance." 
 
 " Show me up," accepted Fairfax, and put the last of 
 Bella's charity into the man's hand.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THAT was May. Five months later, when the Hudson 
 flowed* between flaming October shores, and the mists of 
 autumn hung like a golden grail on the air, Fairfax leaned 
 out of the window of the engine-cab and cried to another 
 man, in another cab on the opposite track 
 
 " Hello, Sanders ; how's your health ? " 
 
 It was the slang greeting of the time. The engineer 
 responded that he was fine as silk, and rang his bell and 
 passed on his rolling way. 
 
 Fairfax wore a red shirt, his trousers were thick with 
 oil and grease. His collar, open at the neck, showed how 
 finely his head was set upon his shoulders, and left free 
 the magnificent column of his throat. Down to his neck 
 came his crisp fair hair, just curling at the ends; his 
 sleeves were up to his elbows and his bare arms were 
 dirty, vigorous and powerful, with the muscles standing 
 out like cords. He never looked at his hands any more, 
 his clever sensitive hands. He had been Joe Mead's 
 fireman for five months, a record ticket for Joe Mead's 
 cab. Fairfax had borne cursing and raging from his 
 chief, borne them with equanimity, feeding into the belly 
 of his engine whatever disgust he felt. Thrown together 
 with these strange men of a different class, he learned new 
 things of life, and at first he was as amused as a child at 
 play. He made two dollars a day. This amply fed him 
 and kept him, and he put by, with a miserliness that was 
 out of all keeping with his temperament, every cent he 
 could spare from the necessities of life. 
 
 Not that Fairfax had any plans. 
 
 From the first opening of his eyes on West Albany, 
 when he had crawled out of the baggage car in the dawn, 
 he shut out his past from himself. He crushed back 
 
 93
 
 94 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 even his own identity. He earned his bread by the sweat 
 of his brow in the real sense of the word, and for what 
 reason he saved his money he could not have told. He 
 had become a day labourer, a fireman on the New York 
 Central road, and he was a first-rate hand. His figure in 
 the rude, dirty clothes, his bowler always worn on the 
 back of his blonde head, his limp (that big boot had gone 
 hard with him on the day that he applied for a job at the 
 boss's office), all were familiar in Nut Street by this. His 
 voice, his smile, his rare good heart, made him a popular 
 companion, and he was, too, popular with the women. 
 
 His miserable reception in New York, the bruises 
 inflicted upon him by Cedersholm and his uncle, had 
 embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of which his humble 
 Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any 
 harm, however. If any harm were done at all and there 
 is a question even regarding that it was done to himself, 
 for he crushed down his ambitions, he thrust them out of 
 his heart, and he bit the dust with a feeling of vengeance. 
 He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own world 
 had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. 
 All that his mother knew was that he had gone on to the 
 north of the State, to perfect certain branches of his art, 
 and that it was better for him to be in Albany. Eeclining 
 under the vines, she read his letters, smiling, fanning 
 herself with a languid hand. 
 
 " Emmy, Master Tony's getting on, getting on." 
 
 " Yas'm, Mis' Bella, I do speck he is." 
 
 "Listen, Emmy." And Mrs. Fairfax would read 
 aloud to the devoted negro the letters planned, concocted, 
 by her son in his miserable lodgings, letters which cost 
 him the keenest pangs of his life, kind and tender lines; 
 things he would have done if he could; things he had 
 hoped for and knew would never come true ; joys he meant 
 to bring her and that he knew she would grow old and 
 never see; success and fame, whose very sound to him 
 now was like the knell of fate. At the end of the letter 
 he said 
 
 " I am studying mechanics. I reckon you'll laugh at 
 me, mother, but they are useful to a sculptor." 
 
 And she had not laughed in the way he meant as she 
 kissed his letter and wet it with her tears.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 No Sunday duties took him to the yards, and washed and 
 dressed,"" shaved and brushed, he became a beautiful man 
 of the world, in a new overcoat and a new sleek hat, 
 and over his hands thick doeskin gloves. He could afford 
 to pay for his clothes, and like this he left Nut Street every 
 Sunday at nine o'clock, not to see West Albany again 
 till midnight. On the seventh day of the week he was 
 a mystery to his chums and his landlady, and if any one 
 in Nut Street had had time to be suspicious and curious 
 they might have given themselves the trouble of following 
 Fairfax. There were not many idlers, however, and no 
 saloons. Drunkards were unwelcome, and Sunday was 
 a day of rest for decent hard workers. When Antony, in 
 his elegance, came out he used to pass between fathers 
 of families in their shirt sleeves, if it were warm weather, 
 and between complacent couples, and many of the hands 
 slept all day. The most curious eyes were those of Molly 
 Shannon, the girl at the restaurant, and her eyes were 
 more than curious. 
 
 Fairfax had been courteous to her, bidding her good- 
 morning in a way that made her feel as though she were 
 a lady. He had been there for his breakfast and lunch 
 several months until finally Molly Shannon drove him 
 away. This she did not do by her boldness, for she was 
 not bold, but by her comeliness and her sex and her smile. 
 Fairfax fed his Pride in his savage immolation before the 
 monster of iron and steel; by his slavery to work he 
 revenged himself upon his class. His Pride grew; he 
 stood up against Fate, and he thought he was doing a 
 very fine thing, when his Pride also stood up in the 
 restaurant when he took his cup of coffee from the red- 
 handed girl of the people, pretty Molly Shannon from 
 
 95
 
 96 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Killarney. Fairfax went farther up the street. He found 
 another eating house, and later ate his sandwich on his 
 knees at noon in the cab of his engine. 
 
 When Molly Shannon found that he was not coming 
 there for his coffee any more, she grew listless, and doled 
 out food to the other men with a lack of science and interest 
 that won her sharp reproofs and coarse jokes. From her 
 window over the restaurant she watched Mister Fairfax 
 as every Sunday he went limping up the street. Molly 
 watched him, her breast palpitating under -the common 
 shirtwaist, and the freckles on the milky white skin died 
 out under the red that rose. 
 
 " He's got a girl," she reflected ; " sure, he's got a girl." 
 
 One Sunday in October, a day of yellow sunlight and 
 autumn air, when Nut Street and the yards and West 
 Albany fringed the country like the hem of an ugly 
 garment, Molly came down and out into the street, and 
 at a distance she followed Fairfax. Fairfax cut down a 
 couple of blocks further on to the main station. He went 
 in and bought a ticket for Albany. He boarded the cars, 
 and Molly followed. 
 
 She tracked him at a safe distance up Market Street 
 to Eagle, and the young man walked so slowly that it was 
 easy to keep him in sight. The man pursued by the Irish 
 girl suggested nothing less than a New York Central 
 fireman. He looked like any other well-set-up, well-made 
 young gentleman out on a Sunday morning. In his 
 fashionable coat, his fashionable hat, Molly saw him go 
 through the doors of a stone church whose bells rang 
 solemnly on the October air. 
 
 The girl was very much surprised. 
 
 She felt him safe even within the walls of the heathen 
 church, and she went directly back to Nut Street, her 
 holiday hanging heavy on her hands, and she went in and 
 helped her patron wash the dishes, and upstairs that night 
 she stopped in her simple preparations for bed and 
 reddened. 
 
 " Sure, ain't I a silly ! He's went to church to meet 
 his girl ! " 
 
 Her morning's outing, the tramp and the excitement, 
 were an unusual strain to Molly, not to speak of her 
 emotions, and she cried herself to sleep.
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 97 
 
 Fairfax sat every Sunday in the same pew. The seat 
 was to the left of the altar, and he sang with an ardour 
 and a mellowness that was lost neither on the people near 
 him nor on the choir-master. All arts were sympathetic 
 to him: his ear was good ami his voice agreeable. His 
 youth, his sacrifice, his dying art he put into his church 
 singing, and once the choir-master, who had taken pains 
 to mark him, stopped him in the vestibule and spoke to 
 him. 
 
 " No," Fairfax said, " I am not a musician. Don't 
 know one note from another, and can't learn. Only sing 
 by ear, and not very sure at that ! " 
 
 He listened indifferently. As the gentleman spoke of 
 art and success, over Antony's handsome mouth there 
 flitted a smile that had something of iron in it. 
 
 " I don't care for any of those things, sir," he replied. 
 " I reckon I'm a barbarian, a rudimentary sort of man." 
 
 He took a certain pride and glory in his station as he 
 talked. There was a fascination in puzzling this mild, 
 charming man, one of his own class, whose very voice and 
 accent were a relief after the conversations he heard daily. 
 
 " You see," he said, " I happen to be a fireman in the 
 New York Central yards down at West Albany." 
 
 The quiet choir-master stared at him. " Oh, come, 
 come ! " he smiled. 
 
 Fairfax thrust his cane under his arm, drew off his 
 glove, and held out his hand, looking into the other man's 
 eyes. The musician's hand closed over Fairfax's. 
 
 " My dear young fellow," he said gravely, " you are 
 a terrible loss to art. You would make your way in the 
 musical world." 
 
 Fairfax laughed outright, and the choir-master 
 watched him as others did as he limped away, his broad, 
 fine back, his straight figure, and Fairfax's voice swelling 
 out in the processional came to the musician's mind. 
 
 " There is a mystery about that chap," he thought. 
 " He is a gentleman. The Bishop would be interested." 
 
 By contrast Sundays were delightful to Antony. 
 Amusements possible to a workingman with the tastes of 
 a gentleman were difficult to obtain. Church in the 
 morning, a lazy stroll through the town, an excellent 
 dinner at the Delavan House, set Fairfax up for the week.
 
 98 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 The coloured waiter thought his new patron was a 
 Southerner, and suspected him of being a millionaire. 
 
 " Yass, sar, Mr. Kunnell Fairfax, sar." 
 
 Antony, in a moment of heart hunger for the South, 
 had told George Washington his name. George Washing- 
 ton kept the same place for him every Sunday, and 
 polished the stone china plates till they glistened, dis- 
 played for Antony all his dazzling teeth, bowed himself 
 double, his napkin under his arm, and addressed Antony 
 as " Kunnell " ; and Antony over his dessert laughed in 
 his sleeve (he took great pains to keep his hands out of 
 sight). After luncheon he smoked and read the papers in 
 the lobby, lounged about, wrote a Sunday letter to his 
 mother, and then loitered about through old Albany. 
 On Sunday afternoons when it was fine, he would choose 
 School Street and the Cathedral close, and now, under 
 the falling of the yellow leaves there was a beauty in the 
 day's end that thrilled him hour by hour. He made 
 these pilgrimages to keep himself from thinking, from 
 dreaming, from suffering; to keep his hands from pencil 
 and design ; to keep his artist soul from crying out aloud ; 
 to keep his talent from demanding, like a starving thing, 
 bread that he had no means to give. Sometimes, however, 
 sometimes, when the stimulus of an excellent dinner, and 
 a restful morning, when the cheer of George Washington's 
 droll devotion had died, then the young man's step would 
 lag in the streets of Albany, and with his hands behind 
 his back and his bright head bowed, he would creep musing, 
 half-seeing where he went. 
 
 Taking advantage of his lassitude, like peris whose wings 
 had been folded against Paradise, and whose forms had 
 been leaning hard against the gate, his ideals, his visions, 
 would rush in upon him, and he would nearly sink under 
 the beating of their wings under their voluptuous appeal, 
 under their imperious demand. 
 
 On these occasions Fairfax would go home oppressed, 
 and content himself with a glass of milk and light food at 
 the restaurant, and dressed as he was even to the hat on 
 his head, he would sink by the table in his little room and 
 bury his face in his hands. Then he would count up his 
 money. Working from May until October, he had saved 
 only fifty dollars. After his calculations there was no
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 99 
 
 magnitude in the sum to inspire him to new plans or to 
 tempt him to make a fresh venture for art. He often 
 thought, in looking back on those days, that it was nothing 
 but his pride and his obstinacy that kept him there. The 
 memory of his winter's creations, of his work in the studio, 
 and his beasts with their powerful bodies and their bronze 
 beauty, came upon him always with such cruel resentment 
 and made him feel so impotent against the injustice of the 
 great, that if drink had tempted Fairfax he would have 
 gone to the nearest saloon and made a beast of himself. 
 
 The working hours were long and his employment 
 physic/ally exhausting, but he embraced his duties and fell 
 in love with the great steel and iron creature which it was 
 his work to feed and clean and oil. And when he left his 
 engine silent in the shed, the roar and the motion absent, 
 tranquil, breathless, and yet superb, Antony left his 
 machine with regret, the regret of a lover for his mistress. 
 He was fireman to a wild-cat engineer.
 
 CHAPTEE Y 
 
 FAIRFAX, used to the Southern climate, found no fault 
 with the heat of summer, bone-racking and blood-boiling 
 though it was; but, remembering his past experience of 
 winds and snow in January, he wondered how winter 
 would seem in the yards, endured in the cab of the 
 engine, but his toil had now toughened him, roughened 
 him, and strengthened his heart of steel. November, 
 with its Indian summer smoothness, with its fine, glorious 
 light that glowed over West Albany, passed, and the year 
 went out in beauty and December followed, still windless 
 and mild. But that was the last touch of mercy. January 
 rushed down upon them, fierce, tempestuous, and up and 
 down the yards, from his window, Fairfax watched the 
 whirling shrouds of snow sweep over the ground, cover 
 the tracks, and through the veil the lights flickered like 
 candles that the snuffers of the storm were vainly trying 
 to extinguish. He put on an extra flannel shirt under 
 his red shirt; he buttoned his vest high, got into his coat, 
 jammed his hat on fiercely and shook himself like a 
 reluctant dog before going to his work. Under his window 
 he could hear the soughing of the wind and it sucked 
 under the door ; he was sure that he would never be warm 
 here again. 
 
 " Jove ! " he thought, " there will be two inches of 
 snow inside my window when I get back at midnight." 
 He drove his razor into the crack to stiffen the casement, 
 and took an old flannel shirt and laid it along the ledge. 
 As he did so the storm blew a whirl of snow across the 
 pane. 
 
 " Siberia/' he muttered to himself ; " don't talk to me 
 about Russia. This is far enough North for me ! " 
 
 He could not have said why the thought of the children 
 
 100
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 101 
 
 came, but its spirit came back to him. For months he had 
 fiercely thrust out every memory of the children, but 
 to-night, as the wind struck him, he thought of their 
 games and the last time they had played that romp- 
 ing sport together. Like a warm garment to shield him 
 against the cold he was just going to fight, he seemed to 
 feel Bella's arms around his neckas they had clung whilst 
 he rushed with her through the hall. It was just a year 
 ago that he had arrived in the unfriendly city of his 
 kinsmen, and as he thought of them, going down the 
 narrow^dark stairs of the shanty hotel, strangely enough 
 it waS "not the icy welcome that he remembered, but 
 Bella Bella in her corner with her book, Bella with her 
 bright red dress, Bella with her dancing eyes and her 
 eager face. 
 
 " You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin Antony." 
 
 The door of the hotel eating-room was open and dimly 
 lighted. Kenny and his wife were talking before the 
 stove. They heard their lodger's step a unique step in 
 the house and the woman, who would have gone down 
 on her knees and blacked his big boot and the smaller 
 boot, called out to him 
 
 " Ah, don't yez go out unless ye have a cup of hot 
 coffee, Misther Fairfax. It's biting cold. Come on in 
 now." 
 
 Kenny's was a temperance hotel, obliged to be by the 
 railroad. There were two others in the room besides the 
 landlady and Kenny: Sanders and Molly Shannon. 
 They sat together by the stove. As Fairfax came in 
 Molly drew her chair away from the engineer. Fairfax 
 accepted gratefully Mrs. Kenny's suggestion of hot coffee, 
 and while she busied herself in getting it for him, he sat 
 down. 
 
 " Running out at eight, Sanders ? " 
 
 "You bet," said the other shortly. "New York 
 Central don't change its schedule for the weather." 
 
 Sanders was suspicious regarding Fairfax and the 
 girl, not that the fireman paid the least attention to Molly 
 Shannon, but she had changed in her attitude to all her 
 old friends since the new-comer first drank a cup of coffee 
 in Sheedy's. Sanders had asked Molly to marry him 
 every Sunday since spring, and he firmly believed that if
 
 102 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 he had begun his demands the Sunday before Fairfax 
 appeared, the girl would be Mrs. Sanders now. 
 
 Molly wore a red merino dress. According to the 
 fashio'n of the time it fitted her closely like a glove. Its 
 lines revealed every curve of her young, shapely figure, 
 and the red dress stopped short at the dazzling whiteness 
 of her neck. Her skin, and colouring were Irish, coral- 
 like and pure. Her hair was auburn and the vivid tint 
 of her costume was an unfortunate contrast; but her 
 grey eyes with black flecks in them and long black lashes, 
 her piquant nose and dimples, brought back the artistic 
 mistake, as the French say. She was too girlish, too 
 young, too pretty not to score high above her dreadful 
 dress. 
 
 Fairfax, who knew why he did not eat at the coffee- 
 house any more, looked at the reason, and the artist in 
 him and the man simultaneously regarded the Irish girl. 
 
 " Somebody's got on a new frock/' he said. " Did 
 you make it, Miss Molly ? " 
 
 " Sure," she answered, without lifting her eyes, and 
 went all red from her dress to her hair. 
 
 Fairfax drank the hot coffee and felt the warmth at 
 his heart. He heard Sanders say under his breath 
 
 "Why, I bet you could make anything, Molly, you're 
 so smart. Now I have a rip in my coat here; if Mrs. 
 Kenny has a needle will you be a good girl and mend it ? " 
 
 And Fairfax heard her say, " Sanders, leave me be." 
 
 Since Sanders had cooled to him, Fairfax took special 
 pains to be friendly, for his pride shrank against having 
 any jars here in these quarters. He could not bear the 
 idea of a disagreement with these people with whom he 
 was playing a false part. He took out a couple of excellent 
 cigars from his waistcoat and gave one to Kenny, who 
 stood picking his teeth in the doorway. 
 
 " Thank you, Mister Fairfax. For a felly who don't 
 smoke, ye smoke the best cigars." 
 
 Sanders refused shortly, and as the whistle of an engine 
 was heard above the fierce cry of the storm, he rose. He 
 took the eight o'clock express from Albany to New York. 
 He left all his work to his fireman, jumping on his loco- 
 motive at the last moment, always hanging round Molly 
 Shannon till she shook him off like a burr. Fairfax put
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 103 
 
 the discarded cigar back in his pocket. He was not due 
 for some twenty minutes at the engine-house, and Sanders, 
 gloomily considering his rival, was certain that Fairfax 
 intended remaining behind with the girl. Indeed, 
 Antony's impulse to do just this thing was strong. He 
 was tempted to take Sanders' chair and sit down by 
 Molly. She remained quietly, her eyes downcast, twisting 
 her handkerchief, which she rolled and unrolled. Mrs. 
 Kenny cleared away the dishes, her husband lit his cigar 
 and beamed. Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on 
 his coat slowly, the cloud black on his face. Fairfax 
 wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, he wanted to 
 look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks along 
 the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was 
 crazy about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that 
 her lifted lashes and her Irish eyes would bring. Tempta- 
 tions are all of one kind; there are no different kinds. 
 What they are and where they lead depends upon the 
 person to whom they come. 
 
 " Good-night," said Sanders, shortly. " Give up the 
 door, Kenny, will you ? You're not a ghost." 
 
 " I'm going with you, Sanders," Fairfax said ; " hold 
 on a bit." 
 
 Sanders' heart bounded and his whole expression 
 changed. He growled 
 
 '"What are you going for? You're not due. It's cold 
 as hell down in the yards." 
 
 Fairfax was looking at Molly and instinctively she 
 raised her head and her eyes. 
 
 " Better give this cigar to your fireman, Sandy," 
 Fairfax said to him as the two men buttoned up their 
 coats and bent against the January wind. 
 
 " All right," muttered the other graciously, " give it 
 over here. Ain't this the deuce of a night? " 
 
 The wind went down Sandy's throat and neither man 
 spoke again. They parted at the yards, and Sanders 
 went across the track where his fireman waited for him 
 on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and 
 found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, 
 with whom he was not forbidden by common-sense to 
 play.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BY the time he reached the engine-house he was white 
 with snow, and wet and warm. There was no heating in 
 the sheds where the locomotives waited for their firemen, 
 and the snow and wind beat in, and on the cow-catchers 
 of the two in line was a fringe of white like the embroidery 
 on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place 
 insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin 
 wooden shed. 
 
 Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the 
 midnight express locomotive, to be hitched at West 
 Albany to the Far West Limited. His own, Number 
 Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender, 
 graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it shining and 
 gleaming and lustreful. It was his pride to regard it as a 
 living thing. Love was essential to any work he did; 
 he did not understand toil without it, and he cared for 
 his locomotive with enthusiasm. 
 
 He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine 
 was in perfect order; the fire had already been started 
 by one of the shed firemen, and Fairfax shook down the 
 coals and prepared to get up steam. They were scheduled 
 to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train 
 into the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train 
 till dawn. It was his first night's work in several weeks, 
 and the first ever in a temperature like this. Since morn- 
 ing the thermometer had fallen twenty points. 
 
 His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled a red dress 
 flashed before his eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, 
 too vivid and too violent, then it changed to a warm 
 crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the 
 vision of the child was too young to hold Antonv, now 
 desirous and gloomy. His point of view had changed 
 
 104
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 105 
 
 and his face set as he worked about in the cab and his 
 adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that was grave 
 and stern. 
 
 He hummed under his breath the different things as 
 they came to him. 
 
 " J'ai perdu ma tourterelle." 
 
 Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee 
 and his broken English. And the magnolias were 
 blooming in the yard, for the professor lived on the 
 veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there 
 were the nightingales. 
 
 " J'ai perdu ma tourterelle." 
 
 " First catch your hare/' Antony said. " I have never 
 had a turtle-dove, never had a sweetheart since I fell from 
 the cherry-tree." 
 
 Sounds that were now familiar to him came from out- 
 side, the ringing of the bells as the locomotives drew 
 through the storm, the high scream of the whistles, the 
 roll and rumble of the wheels and the calling of the 
 employer to the railroad hands as they passed to their 
 duties outside the shed. Fairfax left Louisiana and 
 stopped singing. He threw open the door of his furnace, 
 and the water hissed and bubbled in the boiler. He opened 
 the cock and the escaping steam filled the engine-house and 
 mixed with the damp air. 
 
 Looking through the window of the cab, Fairfax saw 
 a figure pass in under the shed. It was a woman with a 
 shawl over her head. He climbed down out of the cab; 
 the woman threw the shawl back, he saw the head and dress. 
 
 " Why, Miss Molly ! " he exclaimed. He thought she 
 had come for Sanders. 
 
 She held out a yellow envelope, but even though she 
 knew she brought him news and that he would not think 
 of her, her big eyes fastened on him were eloquent. 
 Fairfax did not answer their appeal. He tore open the 
 telegram. 
 
 " I brought it myself," she murmured. " I hope it 
 ain't bad news." 
 
 He tore it open with hands stained with grease and 
 oil. He read it in the light of his cab lamp, read it twice, 
 and a man who was hanging around for a job felt the fire- 
 man of Number Forty-one grasp his arm.
 
 106 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " Tell Joe Mead to take you to-night to fire for him 
 tell him I've got bad news. I'm going to New York." 
 
 " It's too bad," said the other cheerfully. " I'll tell him." 
 
 Fairfax had gone flying on his well foot and his lame 
 foot like a jackdaw. He was out of the shed without a 
 word to Molly Shannon. 
 
 " Your felly's got bad news/' said the man, and, keenly 
 delighted with his sudden luck, climbed agilely into the 
 cab of Number Forty-one, and, leaning out of the window, 
 looked down on Molly. 
 
 " He ain't my felly," she responded heavily, " he boards 
 to Kenny's. I just brought him the despatch, but I think 
 it's bad news, sure enough." 
 
 And wrapping the shawl closer over her head, she 
 passed out into the storm whose fringe was deepening on 
 the cow-catchers of Number Ten and Number Forty-one. 
 
 Sanders' big locomotive ran in from the side to the 
 main track as smoothly as oil, and backed up the line to 
 the cars of the night mail. Sanders was to start at eight 
 o'clock, and it was a minute before the hour. The 
 ringing of his bell and the hiss of the steam were in his 
 ears. He was just about to open the throttle when a 
 voice on the other side called to him, and Fairfax climbed 
 up into the cab. 
 
 " Take me in, Sanders, old man ; let me hang on here, 
 will you ? I've got to get to New York as fast as you can 
 take me." 
 
 Sanders nodded, the station signal had been given. 
 He started out, and Antony made himself as small as 
 possible in the only available place between the fireman, 
 who was one of his special pals, and the engineer. Sanders' 
 face was towards his valves and brakes. He pulled out 
 into the driving sleet, scanning the tracks under the search- 
 light. 
 
 " What's up, Tony ? " the fireman at his side asked him 
 as they rolled out into the night to the ringing of the bell. 
 Fairfax handed him his despatch and the fireman read it, 
 and Fairfax answered him 
 
 " A little cousin. One of my little cousins. What time 
 are we due in New York ? "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was past midnight when Antony rushed out of the 
 Forty-second Street station into a blizzard of sleet and 
 snow. He stood a second looking up and down Madison 
 Avenue, searching vainly for a car. There were no cabs 
 at the station, there was nothing in sight but the blinding 
 storm, and he began on foot to battle his way with the 
 elements. It had been snowing in New York for twelve 
 hours. The same fierce challenge met him that he had 
 received the year before, and he pushed his way through 
 the dim streets where the storm veils wrapped the gas 
 lamps like shrouds. He had been on duty since six that 
 morning, except for a few hours in the afternoon. Every 
 now and then he had to stop for breath and to shake the 
 weight of snow off his collar. He was white as wool. 
 The houses on either side were dark with a stray light 
 here and there, but he knew that farther on he should 
 find one house lit with the light that burns for watchers. 
 He glowed like a gladiator, panted like a runner, and he 
 reached the door and leaned for breath and waited for an 
 answer to his ring. Like a gladiator ! How he had 
 mouthed Spartacus for them! He could see the dancing 
 eyes, and little Gardiner touched the muscles of his arm. 
 
 " Feel mine, Cousin Antony." 
 
 Heart of steel ! Well, he would need it now. 
 
 The door was opened, he never knew by whom, and 
 a silence met him that was profound after the voices of 
 the storm. He stamped his feet and shook off the drift 
 from without, threw off his coat, caked thick and fairly 
 rattling with its burden, threw off his hat, heavy and 
 dripping, and as he was, his heart of steel beating in him 
 like a tender human heart, he limped up the quiet stairs. 
 Even then he noticed that there were signs of a feast 
 
 107
 
 108 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 in the house. It should have been the annual dinner of 
 Mr. Carew. The odours of flowers that had died were 
 sickening in the heat. Smilax twisted around the balus- 
 trade of the stairs met his work-stained hand that trembled 
 in the leaves. On the second floor, some one, he was not 
 clear, but afterwards he thought it must have been Miss 
 Eulalie, met him and took him in. 
 
 In the feeble sick-room light, grouped a few people 
 whose forms and faces go to make part of the sombre 
 pictures of watchers; that group in which at some time 
 or other each inhabitant of the world takes his place. 
 There was one kneeling figure; the others stood round 
 the bed. The little bark, quite big enough to carry such a 
 small freight thus far on the voyage, was nearly into port. 
 
 Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and 
 dress the only shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's 
 hair was brushed back from his brow, he looked older, 
 but still very small to go so far alone. Gardiner was 
 travelling, travelling climbing steep mountains, white 
 with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, 
 fast, fast it was the only sound in the room. Bella 
 had not left his side for hours, her cheek pressed the pillow 
 by his restless head. Her tears had fallen and dried, 
 fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried 
 to say. His faltering words, his halting English, were 
 familiar to the sister and she interpreted to the others, 
 to whom Gardiner, too small to reach them, had never 
 been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure had 
 asked 
 
 " What does he say, Bella ? What does he want ? " 
 
 "He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he 
 says it's cold, he says he wants Cousin Antony." 
 
 Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must 
 gird his little loins for the journey, his mind had gone 
 to the big cousin who had so triumphantly carried him 
 over the imaginary steeps. 
 
 From the door, where he had been standing on the 
 edge of the group, a tall figure in a red flannel shirt came 
 forward, bent down, and before any one knew that he had 
 come, or who he was, he was speaking to the sick child. 
 
 " Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony 
 come back."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 109 
 
 Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its 
 restless turning. He looked up into the beloved face, 
 whose smile shone on him and lit his dark journey. 
 Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, 
 he tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella 
 whispered 
 
 " He wants Cousin Antony to carry him." 
 Without removing his look of tender brightness from 
 the traveller's face, Fairfax murmured 
 
 " I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline/' 
 
 And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little 
 
 Gardiner, he was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his 
 
 eyes upon Antony's and with a radiant look gave up the 
 
 painful climbing to the rescuer.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FAIRFAX himself made many cruel Siberian journeys and 
 voyages through hellish tropics, on his own narrow bed 
 in the hall room overlooking the New York Central yards. 
 He had something close to pneumonia and turned and 
 cried out on his bed, too small for his big form, and in his 
 delirium he kicked away the footboard. His uncle's 
 house, which he had left as brusquely this time as before, 
 haunted him in his mind troubled by sickness. He cried 
 out that it was a cursed place and that Gardiner had been 
 killed by neglect, and that he shook the dust of New York 
 from his feet. From wild blue eyes that flamed under his 
 hair grown long, he stared into the space peopled by 
 delirium and called his solitary attendant " Bella," and 
 begged her to come away with him before it was too late, 
 for, as many sick people seem to be, he was travelling. 
 In his case he journeyed back to his boarding-house and 
 laid his visions down and waked up in the same old world 
 that had treated him badly, but which he was not ready 
 to leave. 
 
 It was a sunny, brilliant January day. The snow had 
 frozen on his window and the light played upon gleaming 
 bands, and through the dingy yellow shade the sunlight 
 came determinedly. On the table by his bedside were his 
 medicines and milk, and he was covered by counterpanes 
 lent by the other lodgers. 
 
 He felt the perspiration pour off him as his mind found 
 its balance, and he saw how weak he was; but though 
 it hurt him to breathe, he could do so, and the crisis was 
 past. He had fallen on his bed when he came from 
 New York and here he had remained. He wet his 
 cracked lips, said "Water," and from behind him, where 
 she had been sitting, a girl came and held a glass to his 
 
 110
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE HI 
 
 lips. Fairfax drank, closed his eyes, made no sign of 
 recognition, for he knew Molly Shannon. She wiped the 
 sweat from his brow and face tenderly, and though her 
 hand had not trembled before in her ministrations, it 
 trembled now. Her heart was beating with gratitude for 
 she knew he was saved. She gave him milk and brandy, 
 after a few moments, then sat down to her work. Fairfax, 
 speaking each word distinctly, said 
 
 " I reckon I've been pretty sick, haven't I ? " 
 " You're all right now, Misther Fairfax." 
 He smiled faintly. He was indifferent, very weak, but 
 he felt a kind of mild happiness steal over him as he lay 
 there, a sense of being looked after, cared for, and of having 
 beaten the enemy which had clutched his throat and chest. 
 He heard the voices of Molly and the doctor, heard her 
 pretty Irish accent, half-opened his eyes and saw her hat 
 and plaid red-and-black shawl hanging by the window. 
 The plaid danced before his eyes, became a signal flag, and, 
 watching it, he drowsed and then fell into the profound 
 sleep which means recovery.
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 FAIRFAX took Molly Shannon's presence for granted, 
 accepted her services, obeyed her docilely and thanked 
 her with his smile which regained its old radiance as he 
 grew stronger. Lying shaven, with his hair cut at last 
 for she had listened to his pleading and sent for a barber 
 in clean sheets and jacket, he looked boyish and thin, 
 and to the Irish girl he was beautiful. She kept her eyes 
 from him for fear that he should see her passion and her 
 adoration, and she effaced herself in the nurse, the mother, 
 the sister, in the angel. 
 
 Sure, she hadn't sent word to any one. How should 
 she? Sorry an idea she had where he came from or who 
 were his folks. 
 
 " I am glad. I wouldn't have worried my mother." 
 
 And answering the question that was bounding in 
 Molly's heart, he said 
 
 " There's no one else to frighten or to reassure. I must 
 write to my mother to-day." 
 
 As he said this he remembered that he would be 
 obliged to tell her of little Gardiner, and the blood rose to 
 his cheek, a spasm seized his heart, and his past rushed 
 over him and smote him like a great wave. 
 
 Molly sat sewing in the window, mending his shirts, 
 the light outlining her form and her head like a red 
 flower. He covered his face with his hand and a 
 smothered groan escaped him, and he fell back on the 
 pillow. Molly ran to him, terrified: "a relapse," that's 
 what it was. The doctor had warned her. 
 
 " God in heaven ! " she cried, and knowing nothing 
 better to do, she put her arms round him as if he had been 
 a boy. She saw the tears trickle through his thin hands 
 that in his idleness had grown white, though the dark 
 ridges around the broken nails were blackened still. 
 
 112
 
 113 
 
 Fairfax quickly regained his control and made the 
 girl go back to her work. After a little he said 
 
 " Who's been paying for all these medicines, and so 
 forth?" 
 
 " Lord love ye, that's nothing to cry about." 
 
 " There is money in my vest pocket, Molly ; get it, 
 will you ? " 
 
 She found a roll of bills. There were twenty dollars. 
 
 She exclaimed 
 
 " That's riches ! I've only spent the inside of a five- 
 dollar bill." 
 
 " And the doctor ? " 
 
 " Oh, he'll wait. He's used to waiting in Nut Street." 
 
 Fairfax fingered the money. " And your work at 
 Sheedy's?" 
 
 Molly stood by the bed, his shirt in her hand, her 
 brass thimble on one finger, a bib apron over her bosom. 
 
 " Don't bother." 
 
 " You've lost your place, Molly ; given it up to take 
 care of me." 
 
 She took a few stitches, the colour high in her face, 
 and with a rare sensitiveness understood that she must 
 not let Antony see her sacrifice, that she must not put 
 her responsibility on Fairfax. She met his eyes candidly. 
 
 " If you go on like this, you'll be back again worse 
 nor ye were. Sheedy's afther me ivery day at the dure 
 there, waitin' till I'm free again. He is that. Meanwhile 
 he's payin' me full time. He is that. He'll keep me me 
 place ! " 
 
 She lied sweetly, serenely, and when the look of relief 
 crept over Fairfax's face, she endured it as humble women 
 in love endure, when their natures are sweet and honey- 
 like and their hearts are pure gold. 
 
 She took the five dollars he paid her back. He was too 
 delicate in sentiment to offer her more, and he watched 
 her, his hands idly on the sheets. 
 
 " I reckon Joe Mead's got another fireman, Molly ? " 
 
 "Ah, no," she laughed, "Joe's been here every day 
 to see when you would be working, and when Joe don't 
 come the other felly comes to see when you'll let him 
 off!" 
 
 Life, then, was going on out there in the yards. He
 
 114 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 heard the shriek of the engines, the fine voices of the 
 whistles, and the square of his sunny window framed the 
 outer day. People were going on journeys, people were 
 coming home. He had come back, and little Gardiner . . . 
 " Sit down," he said brusquely to the girl who stood 
 at hia side ; " sit down, for God's sake, and talk to me ; 
 tell me something, anything, or I shall go crazy again."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HE recovered rapidly; his hard work had strengthened 
 his constitution, and Molly Shannon modestly withdrew, 
 and Mary Kenny, the landlady, who had disputed the 
 place from the first, took it and gave Antony what further 
 care he needed. He missed Molly the first day she left 
 huff, missed her shawl and hat and the music of her Irish 
 voice. He had sent for books through Joe Mead, and 
 read furiously, realizing how long he had been without 
 intellectual food. 
 
 But the books made him wretched. 
 
 Not one of them was written for an artist who had 
 been forced by hard luck to turn into a day labourer. All 
 the beautiful things he read made him suffer and desire 
 and long, and worse still, made him rebel. One phrase 
 out of Werther lingered and fascinated him 
 
 " The miseries of mankind would be lighter if God 
 knows why this is so if they would not use all their 
 imagination to remember their miseries and to recall to 
 themselves the souvenirs of their unhappy past." 
 
 The unhappy past! Well, was it not sad at his age 
 to have a past so melancholy that one could not recall it 
 without tears ? 
 
 Every one but Sanders came to see him, and jolly 
 him up. Joe Mead gave him to understand that he only 
 lived for the time when Tony should come back to feed 
 " the Girl," as he called his engine. Tony looked at his 
 chief out of cavernous eyes. Joe Mead had on his Sunday 
 clothes and would not light his cigar out of deference to 
 Tony's sick-room. 
 
 " You're forty, Mead, aren't you ? " 
 
 " About that, I guess." 
 
 " And I am only twenty-three," returned Fairfax. 
 
 115
 
 116 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " Is that going to be a picture of me at forty? " he thought, 
 and answered himself violently : " My mother's pride and 
 mine forbid." 
 
 " Sanders doesn't come to see me, Joe ? " 
 
 "Nope," returned the other, "you bet your life. If 
 he ain't waiting for you at the door with a gun when you 
 come down it's only because he is off on his job." 
 
 When his chief got up to leave him, Fairfax said, " I 
 want you to get me a book on mechanics, Joe, practical 
 mechanics, and don't pay over a dollar and a half." 
 
 He owed Molly Shannon more than he could ever 
 return. The doctor told him, because he imagined that 
 it would give the young fireman satisfaction, that the 
 nursing had saved his life. Sanders was not at the stair- 
 foot when Fairfax finally crept down to take his first 
 outing. It was the middle of February and a mild day. 
 Indeed, he had been at work over a fortnight when he 
 caught sight of Molly and Sanders standing at the head of 
 Nut Street, talking. 
 
 As he came up to them, Sanders turned a face clouded 
 with passion on Fairfax. 
 
 " You cursed hound ! " he growled under his breath, 
 and struck out, but before he could reach Fairfax Molly 
 threw herself on Sanders and caught the blow on her arm 
 and shoulder. In spite of her courage she cried out and 
 would have fallen but for Fairfax. The blow, furiously 
 directed by an able-bodied man, had done worse work 
 than Sanders intended, and the poor girl's arm hung limp 
 and she fainted away. 
 
 " Mother of God," muttered Sanders, " I have killed you, 
 Molly darling ! " 
 
 Her head lay on Fairfax's shoulder. " Let's get her 
 into the coffee house," he said shortly. 
 
 Sanders was horrified at the sight of the girl he adored 
 lying like death from his blow, and with a determination 
 which Fairfax could not thwart the engineer took the girl 
 in his own arms. 
 
 "Give her to me," he said fiercely, "I'll settle with 
 you later. Can't take her into the coffee house: they've 
 turned her out on account of you. There's not a house 
 that would take her but the hotel. I'm going to carry 
 her to my mother."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 117 
 
 Followed by a little group of people whom Fairfax 
 refused to enlighten, they went down the street, and 
 Sanders disappeared within the door of the shanty where 
 his family lived. 
 
 The incident gave Antony food for thought, and he 
 chewed a bitter cud as he shut himself into his room. 
 He couldn't help the girl's coming to him in his illness. 
 He could have sent her about her business the first day 
 that he was conscious. She would not have gone. She 
 had lost her place and her reputation, according to 
 Sanders, because of her love for him. There was not any 
 use in mincing the matter. That's the way it stood. 
 What should he do ? What could he do ? 
 
 He took off his heavy overcoat and muffler, rubbed 
 his hands, which were taking on their accustomed dirt 
 and healthy vigour, poured out a glass of milk from the 
 bottle on his window sill, and drank it, musing. The 
 Company had acted well to him. The paymaster was a 
 mighty fine man, and Antony had won his interest long 
 ago. They had advanced him a month's pay on account 
 of his illness. He brushed his blonde hair meditatively 
 before the glass, settled the cravat under the low rolling 
 collar of his flannel shirt. He was a New York Central 
 fireman on regular duty, no further up the scale than 
 Molly Shannon as far as Nut Street and the others 
 knew. Was there any reason why he should not marry 
 her? She had harmed herself to do him good. He was 
 reading his books on mechanics, a little later he was going 
 to night school when his hours changed; he was going to 
 study engineering; he had his yard ambitions, the only 
 ones he permitted himself to have. 
 
 It was four o'clock of the winter afternoon, and the 
 sunset left its red over the sky. Through his little 
 window he saw the smoke of a locomotive rise in a milky 
 column, cradle and flow and melt away. The ringing of 
 the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had becomi 
 musical to Fairfax. 
 
 There was no reason why he should not marry the 
 Irish girl who doled out coffee to railroad hands. . . . 
 Was there none? The figure of his mother rose before 
 him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was 
 waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown
 
 118 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 him when he should bring his triumphs home. The ugly 
 yards blurred before his eyes, he almost fancied that a 
 spray of jasmine blew across the pane. 
 
 He would write 
 
 " Mother, I have married an Irish girl, a loving, 
 honest creature who saved my life and lost her own good 
 name doing so. It was my duty, mother, wasn't it? 
 I am not striving for name or fame; I don't know what 
 art means any more. I am a day labourer, a common 
 fireman on an engine in the Albany yards that's the 
 truth, mother." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " He turned brusquely from the 
 window, paced his room a few times, limping up and down 
 it, the lame jackdaw, the crippled bird in his cage, and 
 his heart swelled in his breast. No he could not do it. 
 The Pride that had led him here and forced him to make 
 his way in spite of fate, the Pride that kept him here 
 would not let him. He had ambitions then? He was 
 not then dead to fame? Where were those dreams? 
 Let them come to him and inspire him now. He recalled 
 the choirmaster of St. Angel's church. He could get a 
 job to sing in St. Angel's if he pleased. He would run 
 away to Albany. He had run away from New York; 
 now he would run from Nut Street like a cad and save 
 his Pride. He would leave the girl with the broken arm, 
 the coffee-house door shut against her, to shift for herself, 
 because he was a gentleman. Alongside the window he 
 had hung up his coat and hat, and they recalled to him 
 her things as they had hung there. There had been some- 
 thing dove-like and dear in her presence in his room of 
 sickness. His Pride ! He could hear his old Mammy say 
 
 " Massa Tony, chile, you' pride's gwine to lead yo thru 
 black waters some day, shore/' 
 
 He said " Come in " to the short, harsh rap at the door, 
 and Sanders entered, slamming the door behind him. 
 His face was hostile but not murderous; as usual his 
 bowler was a-cock on his head. 
 
 " See here, Fairfax, she sent me. She ain't hurt 
 much, just a damned nasty bruise. I gave her my 
 promise not to stick a knife into you." 
 
 Fairfax pushed up his sleeves; his arms were white as 
 snow. He had lost flesh.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE lid 
 
 "111 fight you right here, Sanders," he said, "and 
 we'll not make a sound. I'm not as fit as you are, but 
 I'll punish you less for that reason. Come on." 
 
 Molly's lover put his hand in his pockets because he 
 was afraid to leave them out. He shook his head. 
 
 " I gave the girl my word, and I'd rather please Molly 
 
 than break every bone in your body, and that's 
 
 saying a good deal. And here on my own hook I want to 
 ask you a plain question." 
 
 " I shan't answer it, Sandy." 
 
 The other with singular patience returned, " All 
 right. I'm going to ask just the same. Are you . . . 
 will you . . . what the hell ... ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Don't go on," said Fairfax ; " shut up and go home." 
 
 Instead, Sanders took off his hat, a sign of unusual 
 excitement with him. He wiped his face and said 
 huskily 
 
 " Ain't got a chance in the world alongside you, 
 Fairfax, and I'd go down and crawl for her. That's how 
 I'm about her, mate." His face broke up. 
 
 Fairfax answered quietly, " That's all right, Sanders 
 that's all right." 
 
 The engineer went on : "I want you to clear out and 
 give me my show, Tony. I had one before you turned 
 up in Nut Street." 
 
 "Why, I can't do that, Sanders," said Fairfax gently; 
 "you oughtn't to ask a man to do that. Don't you see 
 how it will look to the girl ? " 
 
 The other man's face whitened; he couldn't believe his 
 ears. 
 
 "Why, you don't mean to say ... ?" he wondered 
 slowly. 
 
 The figure under the jasmine vine, the proud form and 
 face of his mother, grew smaller, paler as does the fading 
 landscape when we look back upon it from the hill we have 
 climbed. 
 
 " The doctor told me Molly had saved my life," Fairfax 
 said. "They have turned her out of doors in 
 Street. Now you must let me make good as far as 
 I can." 
 
 The young man's blue eyes rested quietly on the blood- 
 shot eyes of his visitor. Sanders made no direct answer;
 
 120 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 he bit his moustache, considered his companion a second, 
 and clapping his hat on his head, tore the door open. 
 
 " You are doing her a worse wrong than any," he 
 stammered ; " she ain't your kind and you don't love her." 
 
 His hand whitened in its grip on the door handle, then 
 giving one look at his companion as though he meditated 
 repeating his unfortunate attack upon him, he flung him- 
 self out of the door, muttering 
 
 " I've got to get out of here. ... I don't dare to 
 stay ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BY the time the sublime spring days came, Fairfax dis- 
 covered that he needed consolation. He must have been 
 a very stubborn, dull animal, he decided, to have so 
 successfully stuffed down and crushed out Antony Fairfax. 
 Antony Fairfax could not have been much of a man at 
 any time to have gone down so uncomplainingly in the 
 fight. 
 
 " A chap who is uniquely an artist and poet," he 
 wrote to his mother, " is not a real man, I reckon." 
 
 But he had not described to her what kind of a fellow 
 stood in his stead. Instead of going to church on Sundays 
 he exercised in the free gymnasium, joined a base-ball 
 team the firemen against the engineers and read and 
 studied more than he should have done whenever he could 
 keep his eyes open. Then spring came, and he could not 
 deny another moment, another day or another night, that 
 he needed consolation. 
 
 The wives and daughters of the railroad hands and 
 officials those he saw in Nut Street were not likely 
 to charm his eyes. Fairfax waited for Easter waited 
 with a strange young crying voice in his heart, a threaten- 
 ing softness around his heart of steel. 
 
 He went on rapidly with his new studies; his mind 
 grasped readily whatever he attacked, and his teacher, 
 less worldly than the choirmaster at St. Angel's, wondered 
 at his quickness, and looked at his disfigured hands. Joe 
 Mead knew Tony's plans and his ambitions; by June they 
 would give Fairfax an engine and Mead would look out for 
 another fireman to feed " the Girl." The bulky, panting, 
 puffing, sliding thing, feminine as the machine seemed, 
 could no longer charm Fairfax nor occupy all his thoughts. 
 
 121
 
 122 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He had been sincere when he told Sanders that he 
 would look out for Molly Shannon. The pinnacle this 
 decision lifted him to, whether felt to be the truth or 
 purely a sentimental advance, nevertheless gave him a view 
 which seemed to do him good. The night after Sanders' 
 visit, Fairfax slept in peace, and the next day he went 
 over to Sanders' mother and asked to see Molly Shannon. 
 She had left Nut Street, had run away without leaving 
 any address. Fairfax did not push his chivalry to try to 
 find her. He slept better than ever that night, and when 
 during the month Sanders himself went to take a job 
 further up in the State and the entire Sanders family 
 moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder still. 
 At length his own restless spirit broke his repose. 
 
 April burst over the country in a mad display of 
 blossoms, which Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, 
 saw lying like snow across the hills. He passed through 
 blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil and 
 grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume 
 of the earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had 
 gone with Bella and Gardiner to Central Park, and he 
 remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched for the 
 prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling 
 success. The children had been in spring attire; now 
 Fairfax could buy himself a new overcoat and did so, a 
 grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw hat with a 
 crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday jauntings 
 but he walked alone. 
 
 He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, 
 locked it and pitched the key out of the window. He 
 would not let them tempt him, for he had weakly bought 
 certain volumes that he had always wanted to read, and 
 Nut Street did not understand them. 
 
 " It's the books," he decided ; " I can't be an engineer 
 if I go on, nor will I be able to bear my lonely state." 
 
 Verse and lovely prose did not help him; their rhythm 
 and swell drew away the curtains from the window of 
 his heart, and the golden light of spring dazzled the 
 young man's eyes. He eagerly observed the womenkind 
 he passed, and Easter week, with its solemn festival, ran 
 in hymn and prayer toward Easter Day. New frocks, 
 new jackets, new hats were bright in the street. On
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 123 
 
 Easter Sunday Fairfax sat in his old place by the choir and 
 sang. The passion and tenderness brooding in him made 
 his voice rich and the choir-master heard him above the 
 congregation. From the lighted altar and the lilies, 
 from the sunlight streaming through the stained windows, 
 inspiration came to him, and as Fairfax sat and listened 
 to the service he saw in imagination a great fountain to 
 the left of the altar, a fountain of his building that should 
 stand there, a marble fountain held by young angels 
 with folded wings, and he would model, as Delia Eobbia 
 modelled, angels in their primitive beauty, their bright 
 infancy. The young man's head sank forward, he 
 breathed a deep sigh. He owed every penny that he had 
 laid by to Mrs. Kenny, to the tailor and the doctor, and in 
 another month he would be engineer on probation. His 
 inspiration left him at the church door. He walked rest- 
 lessly up to the station and with a crowd of excursionists 
 took his train to West Albany. Luncheon baskets, crying 
 babies, oranges, peanuts, and the rest of the excursion para- 
 phernalia filled the car. Fairfax looked over the crowd, 
 and down by the farther door caught sight of a familiar 
 face and figure. 
 
 ; It was Molly Shannon coming back to Nut Street for 
 Easter. For several months the girl had been working 
 in the Troy collar factory, and drawn by the most powerful 
 of magnets was reluctantly returning to Nut Street on 
 her holiday. Molly had no new dress for Easter. She 
 hadn't even a new hat. Her long hours in the factory 
 and her state of unhappy, unrequited love, had worn 
 away the crude brilliance of her form. She was pale, 
 thinner, and in her cheap dress, her old hat with its faded 
 ribbon, with her hands clasped over a little imitation 
 leather handbag, she sat utterly alone, as youth and beauty 
 should never be. 
 
 Fairfax limped down the car and took his place by 
 her side.
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 MRS. KENNY, with prodigal hospitality, took Molly in 
 for over Sunday. Fairfax walked alongside of her to his 
 boarding-house, carrying the imitation leather bag, 
 talking to her, laughing with her, calling the colour back 
 and making her eyes bright. He found himself, with his 
 young lady, before the threshold of Kenny's hotel. 
 " Gents only." Whether this was the rule or an idea 
 only, Fairfax wondered, for Molly was not the first one of 
 the gentler sex who had been cordially entertained in the 
 boarding-house ! Mrs. Kenny's sister and her sister's 
 child, her mother and aunts three, had successively come 
 down on the hotel during Fairfax's passing, and been 
 lavishly entertained, anywhere and everywhere, even 
 under Fairfax's feet, for he had come out one morning 
 from his door to find two little girls sleeping on a mattress 
 in the hall. 
 
 All his lifelong Fairfax retained an adoration for 
 landladies. They had such tempting opportunities to 
 display qualities that console and ennoble, and the land- 
 ladies with whom he had come in contact took advantage 
 of their opportunities! It didn't seem enough to wait 
 five weeks for a chap to pay up, when one's own rent was 
 due, but the landlady must buy chicken at ruinous prices 
 when a chap was ill, and make soup and put rice in it, and 
 carry it steaming, flecked with rich golden grease, put 
 pot-pie balls in it and present it to a famishing fireman 
 who could do no more than kiss the hand, the chapped 
 hand, that brought the bowl. 
 
 " Now wud ye, Misther Fairfax ? " 
 He would, as if it had been his mother's ! 
 Nut Street was moral, domestic and in proportion 
 124
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 125 
 
 severe. Mary Kenny had not been born there; she had 
 come with her husband from the happy-go-lucky, pig- 
 harbouring shanties of County Cork. She was the' most 
 unprejudiced soul in the neighbourhood. Between 
 boarders, a lazy husband, six children and bad debts, she 
 had little time to gossip, but plenty of time in which to 
 be generous. 
 
 "I wull that!" she assured Molly. "Ye'll sleep 
 in the kitchen on a shakedown, and the divil knows 
 where it'll shake from for I haven't a spare bed in the 
 house ! " 
 
 Molly would only stay till Monday. . . . Fairfax put 
 her little bag on the kitchen table, where a coarse cloth 
 was spread, and the steam greeted them of a real Irish 
 stew, ^ and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled their 
 appetites. 
 
 Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter 
 Sunday spring clothes. From his high collar, white as 
 Nut Street could white it, to his polished boots he was a 
 pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was as blue as 
 his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his 
 young, well-made mouth, and he beamed with good 
 humour on every one. 
 
 " Shure, dinner's dished, and the childer and Kenny are 
 up to the cemetery pickin' vi'lets. Set right down, the 
 rest will be along. Set down, Misther Fairfax and Molly 
 Shannon." 
 
 After dinner, up in his room, the walls seemed to have 
 contracted. The kitchen's smoky air rose even here, 
 and he flung his window wide to the April sweetness. 
 The atmosphere was too windless to come in and wrestle 
 with the smell of frying, but he saw the day was golden 
 as a draught waiting to be quaffed. The restricted schedule 
 of Sunday cast a quiet over the yards, and from the 
 distance Fairfax heard sounds that were not distinguish- 
 able in the weekday confusion, the striking of the hour 
 from the Catholic Church bell, the voices of the children 
 playing in the streets. There was a letter lying on his 
 bureau from his mother: he had not had the heart to 
 read it to-day. The gymnasium was shut for repairs, 
 there was no ball game on for Easter Day, and, after a 
 second's hesitation, he caught up his hat from where he
 
 126 
 
 had dropped it at his feet and rushed downstairs into the 
 kitchen. 
 
 Molly, her sleeves rolled up, was washing dishes for 
 Mrs. Kenny. 
 
 " Don't you want to come out with me for a walk ? " 
 Fairfax asked her. 
 
 " Go along," said Mrs. Kenny, giving her a shove with 
 her bare elbow. " I'll make out alone fine. The suds is 
 elegant. If you meet Kenny and the children, tell them 
 there's not a bit left but the lashins of the stew, and to 
 hurry up."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THERE was a divine fragrance in the air. Fairfax stopped 
 to gather a few anemones and handed them to his silent 
 companion. 
 
 " Since you have grown so pale in the collar factory, 
 Miss Molly, you look like these flowers." 
 
 He stretched out his arms, bared his head, flung it 
 up and loo.ked toward the woodland up the slope and saw 
 the snow-white stones on the hill, above the box borders 
 and the cedar borders of the burial place: above, the sky 
 was blue as a bird's wing. 
 
 "Let me help you." He put his hand under her arm 
 and walked with her up the hill. They breathed together ; 
 the sweet air with its blossomy scent touched their lips, 
 nnd the ancient message of spring spoke to them. He 
 was on Molly's left side; beneath his arm he could feel 
 her fluttering heart and his own went fast. At the hill 
 top they paused at the entrance to a pretentious lot, with 
 high white shafts and imposing columns, broken by the 
 crude whiteness of a single marble cross. Brightly it stood 
 out against the air and the dark green of cedar and box. 
 
 " This is the most perfect monument," he said aloud, 
 "the most harmonious; indeed, it is the only relief to 
 the eye." 
 
 On every grave were Easter garlands, crosses and 
 wreaths; the air was heavy with lilac and with lily. 
 
 Except for a few monosyllables Molly said nothing, 
 but now, as they paused side by side, she murmured - 
 
 " It's beautiful quiet after the racket of the shops ; it's 
 like heaven ! " 
 
 Fairfax's glance wandered over the acres of monuments, 
 marking the marble city, and came back to the living girl 
 
 at his side. 
 
 127
 
 128 FAIRFAX AND HIS PE1DE 
 
 " It's a strange place for two young people to stroll 
 about in, Miss Molly." 
 
 Molly Shannon stood meekly, her work-stained hands 
 clasped loosely before her and in her form were the beauties 
 of youth, virginity, chastity, promise of life and fecundity, 
 and, for Fairfax, of passion. 
 
 " Ah, I don't know," she answered him slowly, " I 
 think it's lovely and quiet here. Back in Troy next week 
 when we work overtime and the boss gets mad, I'll think 
 of it likely, I guess." 
 
 He talked to her as they strolled, realizing his need 
 of companionship, and his pent-up heart poured itself 
 forth as they walked between the graves, and he told the 
 Irish girl of Bella and little Gardiner, and of his grief. 
 
 " I don't know what I did that day," he finished. " I 
 was a brute to my aunt and to the little girl. I laid him 
 down on his bed and rushed out like a crazy man; the 
 house seemed to haunt me. I must have been ill then. 
 I recall that my aunt called to me and that Bella hung 
 on my arm and that I shook her off. I recall that my 
 uncle followed me downstairs and stood by me while I got 
 into my overcoat, but I was too savage and too miserably 
 proud to answer him. I left him talking to me and the 
 little girl crying on the stairs." 
 
 She asked him timidly, "What had they done to make 
 you hate them so ? " She told herself in her humility that 
 he was a gentleman and not for her. 
 
 He continued, carried away by the fact of a good lis- 
 tener, and, although she listened, she understood less than 
 Benvenuto Cellini, less, even, than the children. He came 
 up against so many things that were impossible to tell her 
 that he stopped at length, laughing. 
 
 "You see how a chap runs on when he has a friend 
 by him, Miss Molly. Why do you go back to the collar 
 factory ? " 
 
 He stopped short, remembering what Sanders had said, 
 and that Nut Street had shut its doors against her. They 
 had come down through the cemetery to the main avenue 
 that stretched, spacious and broad, between the dwellings 
 of the dead. They sauntered slowly side by side, an 
 incongruous, appealing couple. He saw her worn shoes, 
 the poor skirt, the hands discoloured as were his, through
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 129 
 
 toil, and his glance followed up the line of her form and 
 his artistic sense told him that it was lovely. Under her 
 coarse bodice the breast gently swelled with her breath, 
 her eyes were downcast, and there was an appealing 
 charm about her that a young man in need of love could 
 not gainsay. Pity for her had been growing long in 
 Fairfax since the first day he saw her in the coffee house, 
 since the time when he had decided to go elsewhere for his 
 meals. 
 
 She stopped at the foot of the avenue and said some- 
 thing was beautiful, and he looked up. The marble 
 figure of an angel on a grey pedestal rose at the gate, a 
 colossal figure in snowy marble, with folded wings and 
 one uplifted hand. There was a solemn majesty in the 
 creation, a fine, noble, holy majesty, and the sculptor 
 halted before it so long, his face grave and his eyes 
 absorbed, that when Molly sighed, he started. Along the 
 base ran the words 
 
 " Why seek ye the living among the dead 1 ? " 
 
 " Come," he said brusquely to his companion ; " come. 
 This is no place for us." And he hurried her out of the 
 grounds. 
 
 On the way home his silence was not flattering to his 
 companion, who was too meek to be offended. Already 
 the pleasure of being by his side was well-nigh too much 
 for her swelling heart to bear. The lengthening twilight 
 filled Nut Street as they turned into it, and very nearly 
 every member of the little working colony was out of 
 doors, including the Sheedys and the new tenants of 
 Sanders' old room. Walking alongside of Molly Shannon, 
 Fairfax understood what his promenade would mean. 
 He glanced at his companion and saw her colour, and she 
 raised her head with a dignity that touched him, and as 
 they passed the Sheedys he said " Good-evening " in his 
 pleasant Southern voice, lifting his hat as though they 
 had been of his own kind. He drew the Irish girl's arm 
 within his own. 
 
 For Molly, she walked a gamut of misery, and the 
 sudden realization of the solemnity of the thing he was 
 doing made the young man's heart beat heavily.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 HE had been gone from home more than a year, his 
 mother wrote. " One cannot expect to carve a career in 
 twelve months' time, Tony, and yet I am so impatient for 
 you, my darling, I am certain you have gone far and have 
 splendid things to show me. Are you sure that Albany 
 is the place for you? Would it not have been better to 
 have stayed on with Cedersholm? When will you run 
 down to your old mother, dearest? I long for the sound 
 of your footstep, the dear broken footstep, Tony. . . " 
 Then she went on to say not to mind her foolishness, not 
 to think of her as mourning, but to continue with his 
 beautiful things. She had not been very well of late 
 a touch of fever, she reckoned: Emmeline took the best 
 of care of her. She was better. 
 
 He let the pages fall, reading them hastily, eagerly, 
 approaching in his thought of her everything he had 
 longed to be, had yearned to be, might have been, and the 
 letter with its elegant fine writing and the fluttering thin 
 sheets rustled ghost-like in his hand. As he turned the 
 pages a leaf of jasmine she had put between the sheets fell 
 unseen to the floor. 
 
 He would go to New Orleans at once: he would throw 
 himself at his mother's knees and tell her his failures, his 
 temptations, his griefs: he would get a transfer to some 
 Southern train, he would steal a ride, but he would go. 
 His mother's pride would suffer when she saw what he 
 had become, but he was not bringing her home a shameful 
 story. She would ask to see his beautiful creations 
 alas! even his ideals were buried under grime and smoke, 
 their voices drowned in whistles and bells! He folded 
 his arms across his breast, the last sheet of the long letter 
 in his hand, and again his room stifled him as it had done 
 
 130
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 131 
 
 before when he had flown out to walk with the Irish girl. 
 The walls closed in upon him. The ceiling seemed to 
 confine him like a coffin lid, and the flickering gas jet over 
 his bureau burned pale like a burial candle . . . 
 
 He groaned, started forward to the door as though he 
 would begin his journey home immediately, but like many 
 a wanderer who starts on his voyage home and finds the 
 old landmarks displaced, before Fairfax could take the 
 first step forward, his course was for ever changed. . . . 
 He had not heard Molly's knock at the door. The girl 
 came in timidly, holding out a telegram; she brought it 
 as she had brought the other, without comment, but with 
 the Irish presentiment of ill, she remained waiting silently, 
 knowing in her humble breast that she was all he 
 hadr 
 
 Fairfax opened the despatch, held it transfixed, gave 
 a cry and said to Molly, staring her wildly in the eyes: 
 " My mother, my mother ! " and went and fell on his 
 knees by his bed and flung his arms across it as though 
 across a beloved form. He shook, agonized for a few 
 moments, then sprang up and stared at the desertion before 
 him, the tears salt on his face and his heart of steel broken. 
 And the girl by the door, where she had clung like a leaf 
 blown there by a wind of grief, came up to him. He felt 
 her take his arm between her hands, he felt her close to 
 him. 
 
 " It cuts the heart o' me to see ye. It's like death 
 to see ye. Is it your mother gone? The dear mother 
 ye must be like? God knows there's no comfort for that 
 kind, but," she breathed devotedly, "I'd give the life o' 
 me to comfort ye/' 
 
 He hardly heard her, but her presence was all he had. 
 Her human companionship was all that was left him. in 
 the world. He put his hand on her shoulder and said 
 brokenly 
 
 " You don't know what this means. It is the end of 
 me, the end. To think I shall never see her again ! Oh, 
 Mother! " he cried, and threw up his arms. The loving 
 woman put hers about him as the gesture left him shorn 
 of his strength, and when his arms fell they were around 
 her. He held her for a moment as a drowning man holds 
 to that which is flung out to him to save his life; then he
 
 132 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 pushed her from him. " Let me get out of this. I must 
 get out of the room." 
 
 "You'll not do anything to yourself? Ah, tell me 
 that/' 
 
 He snatched up his hat and fled from her without 
 reply. 
 
 He wandered like a madman all night long. Whither 
 he did not know or care. He was walking down his 
 anguish, burying his new grief deep, deep. His nails 
 clenched into his palms, the tears ran over his face. One 
 by one as the pictures of his mother came to him, imperious, 
 graceful, enchanting, one by one he blessed them, wor- 
 shipped before them until the curtain fell at the end 
 he could not picture that. Had she called for him in 
 vain? Had she watched the open door to see him enter? 
 In God's name why hadn't they sent for him ? " Suddenly 
 of heart disease . . ." the morning of this very day this 
 very day. And on he tramped, unconsciously going in 
 the direction he had taken that morning, and at a late hour 
 found himself without the gates of the cemetery where he 
 and Molly Shannon had spent the late afternoon. The 
 iron gates were closed; within stretched the shining rows 
 of the houses and palaces of the dead, and on their snowy 
 portals and their marble doors fell the first tender glimmer 
 of the day. Holding the gate between his convulsive 
 hands, staring in as though he begged an entrance as a 
 lodger, Fairfax saw rise before him the angel with the 
 benign uplifting hand, and the lettering, large and clear, 
 seemed written that day for him as much as for any man 
 
 " Why seek ye the living among the dead? " 
 
 He raised his eyes to the angel face on whose brow 
 and lips the light of his visions had gathered for him that 
 morning; and as he looked the angelic figure brightened 
 in the dawn; and after a few moments in which he 
 remained blotted against the rails like an aspirant at 
 Heaven's gate, he turned and more quietly took his way 
 home.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 HE did not go South. There was nothing for him to go 
 for. The idea of his home uninhabited by her made him a 
 coward. Emmeline sent him her thimble, her lace collar, 
 her wedding ring and a lock of her hair, shining still and 
 without a touch of grey. The packet, wrapped up in soft 
 paper and folded by jasmine leaves and buds, whose 
 withered petals were like a faded dress, Fairfax put away 
 in his trunk and did not untie; he did not wish to open 
 his wound. And his face, thinner from his illness and his 
 loss, looked ten years older. The early happy ecstasy of 
 youth was gone, and a bitter, mature recklessness took its 
 place, and there was no hand to soothe him but Molly's, 
 and she had gone back to Troy. He tried what ways were 
 open to a man of his age and the class he had adopted, 
 and he turned for distraction and relief and consolation 
 to their doors. But at those portals, at the threshold of 
 the houses where other men went in, he stopped. If his 
 angel had deserted him, at any rate the beast had not 
 taken its place. The vast solitude and the cruel loneliness, 
 the isolation from his kind, made him an outcast too 
 wretched not to cry for help and too clean to wallow in 
 order to forget his state. His work saved his health and his 
 brain. He made a model of an engine in plaster and went 
 mad over it; he set it on a shelf in his room and when in 
 June he drove his own engine and was an engineer on the 
 New York Central, he knew his locomotive, body and soul 
 and parts, as no other mechanic in the Company knew it. 
 His chiefs were conscious of his skill and intelligence. 
 There were jealousies and enmities, and instead of driving 
 the express as he had hoped, he was delegated to a local 
 on a branch line, with an Italian for fireman who could 
 not speak a word of any but his own language. 
 
 133
 
 134 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "You speak Italian, don't you, Fairfax?" his boss 
 at the office asked him. 
 
 ("Cielo azuro . . . Giornata splendida . . .!") and 
 he smelt the wet clay. 
 
 " I can point," laughed the engineer, " in any language ! 
 and I reckon I'll get on with Falutini."
 
 THE bois was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut 
 Street, and Fairfax, when he took the paper with his 
 orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for the first time in 
 months a man of his own class, sitting in the revolving 
 chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and 
 ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for 
 the season, his linen was old and his appearance meagre, 
 and in his face with its sunken cheeks, the drooping of 
 the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the marks of 
 the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. 
 A year ago Fairfax would have passed Rainsford by as a 
 rather pitiful-looking man of middle age. 
 
 The boss, his thin hand opening and shutting over a 
 small book which looked like a daily ledger, regarded the 
 engineer in his red shirt as Fairfax paused. 
 
 " Irish, I expect ? Your name, Fairfax, is Irish. 
 I understand you've had a hard blow this year, been sick 
 and lost your mother." 
 
 At the quiet statement of this sacred fact Fairfax 
 started painfully, his face flushed. 
 
 " He would not have spoken to me like that," he 
 thought, " if he had not imagined me a working man." 
 
 "Work is the beat friend a young man can have," 
 Rainsford went on; "it is a great safeguard. I take it 
 that you are about thirty ? " 
 
 "Twenty-three," said Fairfax, shortly. 
 
 His report was brief. Just then his fireman came in, 
 a black-haired, tall young fellow with whom Fairfax knew 
 he should never sing " Mia Maddelena." 
 
 135
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HE avoided Rainsford, gave himself up to his engine and 
 his train, and took a dislike to his black-headed fireman, 
 who dared to be Italian and to recall the aurora of days 
 he had buried fathoms deep. The heat pouring on him 
 in summer time made him suffer physically. He rather 
 welcomed the discomfort; his skin grew hardened and 
 tanned and oiled and grimed, and his whole body strong 
 and supple; and his devotion to his work, the air that 
 filled him as he flew, made him the perfect, splendid 
 animal that he was. 
 
 At night, when the darkness blotted out the steel rails, 
 and the breeze blowing through the car-window fluttered 
 his sleeve till it bellied, and the cinders, red and biting, 
 whirled by, and on either side the country lay dark and 
 fragrant with its summery wealth at night his eyes, 
 fixed on the track under the searchlight, showed him 
 more than once a way to end his unhappy life, but his 
 confused reveries and his battle, spiritual and physical, 
 helped him, and he came out of it with a love for life and 
 a stronger hold upon it each time than the last. He gave 
 up wearing his Sunday clothes, he went as the others did ; 
 he had not been for months to Albany or to Troy. 
 
 One Sunday in midsummer his local did not run on 
 the seventh day. He considered his own image in the 
 glass over his bureau and communed with his reflection. 
 The result of his musings was that he opened his trunk 
 and took out the precious packet; started to unfold it, 
 turned it over in his uncertain hands, thrust it back, set 
 his teeth and went out to the junction and took the train 
 for Troy. 
 
 He found her in the boarding-house where she was 
 passing her Sunday, rocking the landlady's teething baby. 
 
 136
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 137 
 
 He bade her to come as she was, not to fix up. The idea 
 of a toilet which would end in a horrible frock rasped his 
 nerves. She detected a great change in him, simple- 
 minded though she was, and she tried to get him to talk 
 and failed. Down at the Erie Canal, by the moored boats 
 and the motionless water, he seized her arm and facing her, 
 said, his lips working 
 
 " I have come to ask you to marry me, Molly." 
 
 She grew as white as the drying linen on the windless 
 air, as the family wash hung on the canal boat lines 
 behind her. Her grey eyes opened wide on Antony. 
 
 " I'm making a good living : too much for me alone." 
 
 He saw her try to find her voice and her senses, and 
 with something of his old radiance, he said 
 
 " I'm a brute. I reckon I don't know how to make 
 love. I've startled you." 
 
 " Ah, shure, ye don't know what ye're saying," she 
 whispered ; " the likes o' me ain't good enough." 
 
 " Hush, hush," he answered, " don't say foolish things." 
 
 She gasped and shook her head. "Ye shouldn't 
 tempt me so. It's crool. Ye shouldn't tempt me so." 
 
 With a self-abandonment and a humility which he 
 never afterward forgot, as her life and colour came back 
 Molly said under her breath 
 
 " Take me as I am, shure, if I'm the least bit of good 
 to ye. I love ye enough for both." 
 
 He exclaimed and kissed her. 
 
 Dreams of women! Visions of the ecstasy of first 
 love, ideals and aspirations, palpitating, holy, the young 
 man's impassioned dream of The Woman, the Only Woman, 
 the notion and conception that the man of nature and of 
 talent and of keen imagination sleeps upon and follows 
 and seeks and seeks and follows all his life, from boyhood 
 to the grave where were they then? 
 
 He had brushed his aunt's cheek, he had touched her 
 hand and trembled; now he kissed fresh young lips that 
 had yearned for his, and he gave his first embrace to 
 woman, put his arms round Molly Shannon and her young 
 body filled them. As she had said, she had love enough 
 for both. He felt a great gratitude to her, a relaxation 
 of his tense senses, a melting of his heart, and his tender- 
 ness was deep for her when his next kiss met her tears.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 HE returned to Nut Street dazed, excited but less senti- 
 mentally miserable and more profoundly touched. He 
 had made himself a mechanical career; he had assumed 
 the responsibilities of a man. He might have been a 
 miserable failure as a sculptor, perhaps he would be a 
 good mechanic. Who knows where any flight will carry 
 a man? Making his life, married and founding a home, 
 he would be a factor in the world's progress, and a self- 
 supporting citizen. He tried to fire himself with this 
 sacrifice. At any rate, in order to save his body he had 
 lost his soul that is, his spiritual soul. " Is not the life 
 more than the meat ? " In the recesses of his artist's 
 mind a voice which he had strangled tried to tell him that 
 he had done his soul a great, great wrong. Nevertheless, 
 a solemn feeling of responsibility and of manhood came 
 upon him, a grave quiet strength was his, and as he 
 journeyed back to his lodgings, he did not then regret. 
 
 Mrs. Kenny and her husband and the children were 
 in the kitchen as he passed and the landlady called out 
 something, but he did not hear for he was half-way upstairs. 
 As he opened the door and went into his room he saw 
 some one was standing by the window no, leaning far 
 out of the window, very far ; a small figure in a black dress. 
 
 "Bella! "he cried. 
 
 She flashed about, rushed at him, and for the first 
 time since " Going to Siberia " he felt the entwining arms. 
 He suffered the dashing embrace, then, freeing himself, 
 saw her hair dark under her black hat, and that she had 
 grown in eighteen months, and he heard 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Antony, how long you have been coming 
 home! I have been waiting for your engine to come 
 
 138
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 139 
 
 under the window, but I didn't see you. How did you get 
 here without my seeing you ? " 
 
 If the sky had opened and shown him the vision of 
 his own mother he could not have been more over- 
 whelmed with surprise. 
 
 "Where did you come from, Bella? Who is with 
 you ? " 
 
 She took her hat off, dropped it easily on the floor, 
 and he saw that her hair was braided in a great braid. 
 She sat on the ledge of the open window and swung her 
 feet. Her skirts had been lengthened, but she was still 
 a little girl. The charming affectionate eyes beamed on 
 him. 
 
 "But you are like anybody else, Cousin Antony, 
 to-day. When I saw you in your flannel shirt I thought 
 you were a fireman/' 
 
 At the remembrance of when she had seen him, a look 
 of distress crossed her mobile face. She burst out crying, 
 sprang up and ran to him. 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Antony, I want him so, my little brother, 
 my little playmate." 
 
 He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her 
 tears, as he had dried them when she had cried over the 
 blackbird. 
 
 "Who is with you, honey? Who brought you 
 here?" 
 
 As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though 
 she had waited with a child's loyal tenderness for this 
 moment, she wound her arms around Fairfax's neck and 
 brought her face close to his cheek. 
 
 " I miss him perfectly dreadfully, Cousin Antony. 
 Nobody took care of him much but me. Now father 
 is broken-hearted. You loved him, didn't you? He per- 
 fectly worshipped you." 
 
 " There, Bella, you choke me, honey. I can't breathe. 
 Now tell me who let you come. Is Aunt Caroline here ? " 
 
 She had no intention of answering him, and wiped her 
 eyes briskly on the handkerchief that he gave her. 
 
 " Tobacco," she sniffed, " your handkerchief has got 
 little wisps of tobacco on it. I think it is perfectly splendid 
 to be an engineer! I wouldn't have thought so though, 
 if I hadn't seen you in the flannel shirt. Wouldn't you
 
 140 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 rather be a genius as you used to think ? Don't you make 
 casts any more? Isn't it sweet in your little room, and 
 aren't the tracks mixing? How do you ever know which 
 ones to go on, Cousin Antony? And which is your 
 engine? Take me down to see it. How Gardiner would 
 have loved to ride ! " 
 
 She was a startling combination of child and woman. 
 Her slenderness, her grace, her tender words, the easy 
 flow of speech, the choice of words caught and remem- 
 bered from the varied books she devoured, her ardour 
 and her rare brilliant little face, all made her an unusual 
 companion. 
 
 " Now answer me," he ordered, " who came with you 
 to Albany?" 
 
 " No one, Cousin Antony." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I came alone." 
 
 " From New York ? You're crazy, Bella ! " 
 
 She sat up with spirit, brought her heavy braid around 
 over her shoulder and fastened the black ribbon securely. 
 
 " I lose my hair ribbons like anything," she said. 
 " Why, I've done things alone for years, Cousin Antony. 
 I've been all over New York matching things. I used to 
 buy all Gardiner's things alone and have them charged. 
 I know my way. I'm going on fourteen. You dropped 
 your telegram, the one Miss Mitty sent you, when you 
 rushed out that night. I found it on the stairs." She 
 fished it out of her pocket. " Mr. Antony Fairfax, 42, 
 Nut Street, West Albany. I had to watch for a good 
 chance to come, and when I got to Forty-second Street 
 I just took a ticket for West Albany, and no one ever 
 asked me my name or address, and the people in the cars 
 gave me candy and oranges. At the station down here 
 I asked the ticket man where Nut Street was, and he 
 said : ' Right over those tracks, young lady,' and 
 laughed at me. Downstairs the woman gave me a glass 
 of milk and aren't the children too sweet, Cousin 
 Antony, with so many freckles? And doesn't she speak 
 with a brogue just like old Ann's ? " 
 
 "This is the wildest thing I ever heard of," said her 
 cousin. " I must telegraph your mother and take you 
 home at once."
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 141 
 
 She gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't do that? I'm not 
 going home. I have run away for good." 
 
 " Don't be a goose, little cousin." 
 
 "I hate home," she said hotly, "it's lonely, and I 
 miss my little brother. They won't let me go to school, 
 and mother takes lessons from an opera singer, and there 
 is no quiet place to read. I never go to the Top Floor 
 where we used to play." She clung to his hand. " Let 
 me stay, Cousin Antony," she pleaded, " I want to live 
 with you." 
 
 She coloured furiously and stopped. And Fairfax 
 saw that she was like his mother, and that the promises 
 were fulfilled. Her low collar, edged with fine lace, fell 
 away from the pure young throat. Her mouth, piquant 
 and soft, half-coaxing and half-humorous, and her glorious 
 eyes fast losing the look of childhood, were becoming 
 mysterious. 
 
 " You are too big a girl," he said sternly, " to talk 
 such nonsense. You are too old to be so silly, Bella. 
 Why, your people must be insane with anxiety." 
 
 But her people, as it turned out, were at Long Branch 
 for the summer, and Bella, presumably to go to the 
 dentist, had come up to stay for a day or two with the 
 little Whitcomb ladies. She had chosen her time well. 
 
 " No one knows where I am. The Whitcombs don't 
 know I am coming to New York, and the family think I 
 am with Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty." 
 
 " There is a train to New York," he said, " in half an 
 hour." 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " Cousin Antony, how horrid ! 
 You've changed perfectly dreadfully. I see it now. 
 You used to be fond of me. I thought you were fond of 
 me. I don't want to force myself on you, Cousin Antony." 
 
 Fairfax was amazed, charmed and bewildered by her. 
 What did Mrs. Kenny think? He opened the door and 
 called her, and said over his shoulder to Bella - 
 
 " What did you tell the woman downstairs ? " 
 
 Bella picked her hat up from the floor and wound 
 the elastic around her fingers. Her face clouded. 
 
 "Tell me," Antony urged, "what did you say to 
 Mrs. Kenny ? " He saw her embarrassment, and re- 
 peated seriously : " For heaven's sake, Bella, tell me,"
 
 142 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " No," she whispered, " I can't." 
 
 He shrugged in despair. " Come, it can't be anything 
 very dreadful. I've got to know, you see." 
 
 The bell of the Catholic Church tolled out eight 
 o'clock. 
 
 " Come, little cousin." 
 
 Half-defiantly and half-shamefacedly, she raised her 
 eyes. 
 
 " It's rather hard to tell you," she stammered, " you 
 seem to be so mad at me." She put a brave face on it. 
 " I just told them that I was engaged to you and that I 
 had come to marry you." And she stood her ground, 
 her little head held up. 
 
 Fairfax stifled a shout, but was obliged to laugh 
 gently. 
 
 "Why, Bella, you are the most ridiculous little cousin 
 in the world. You have read too much. Now, please 
 don't cry, Bella." 
 
 He flung the door open and called : " Mrs. Kenny, 
 Mrs. Kenny ! Will you come up-stairs ? "
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THOSE five hours were short to him travelling back to 
 New York. Bella talked to Fairfax until she was com- 
 pletely talked out. Leaning on him, pouring out her 
 childish confidences, telling him things, asking him things, 
 until his heart yearned over her, and he stored away the 
 tones of her sweet gay voice, exquisite with pathos when 
 she' spoke of Gardiner, and naively tender when she 
 said 
 
 " Cousin Antony, I love you better than any one else. 
 Why can't I stay with you and be happy? I want to 
 work for my living too. I could be a factory girl." 
 
 A factory girl! 
 
 Then she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, and 
 was hardly awake when they reached Miss Mitty's house 
 and the cab stopped. 
 
 He said, " Bella, we are home." 
 
 She did not answer, and, big girl as she was, he carried 
 her in asleep. 
 
 " I wish you could make her believe it's all a dream," 
 he said to the Whitcombs. " I don't want the Carews to 
 know about it. It would be far better if she could be 
 induced to keep the secret." 
 
 " I am afraid you can't make Bella believe anything 
 unless she likes, Mr. Antony." 
 
 No one had missed her. From the Long Branch boat 
 she had gone directly to the Forty-second Street station, 
 and started bravely away on her sentimental journey. 
 
 The little ladies induced him to eat what they could 
 prepare for him, and he hurried away. He was obliged 
 to take his train out at nine Monday morning. 
 
 He bade them look after bold Bella and teach her reason, 
 and before he left he went in and looked at the little girl 
 
 143
 
 144 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 lying with her face on her hand, the stains of tears and 
 travel on her face. 
 
 " I told her that I had come to marry you, Cousin 
 Antony. . . " 
 
 " Little cousin ! Honey child ! " 
 
 His heart was tender to his discarded little love.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 BELLA CAREW'S visit did disastrous work for Fairfax. 
 The day following he was like a dead man at his engine, 
 mechanically fulfilling his duties, his eyes blood-shot, his 
 face worn and desperate. The fireman Falutini bore 
 Fairfax's rudeness with astonishing patience. Their 
 run was from nine until four, with a couple of hours lying 
 off at Fonda, and back again to Albany along in the 
 night. 
 
 The fatality of what he had been doing appeared to 
 Antony Fairfax in its full magnitude. He had cut 
 himself off from his class, from his kind for ever. Bella 
 Carew, baby though she was, exquisite, refined, brilliant, 
 what a woman she would be! At sixteen she would be a 
 woman, at eighteen any chap, who had the luck and the 
 fortune, could marry her. She would be the kind of 
 woman that a man would climb for, achieve for, go mad 
 for. As far as he was concerned, he had made his choice. 
 He was engaged to be married to an Irish factory girl, 
 and her words came back to him 
 
 "If I'm any good, take me as I am. You couldn't 
 marry the likes o' me." 
 
 Why had he ever been such a short-sighted Puritan, so 
 little of a worldling as to entangle himself in marriage? 
 More terribly the sense of his lost art had come in with 
 the little figure he had admitted. 
 
 When he flung himself into his room Monday morning 
 his brain was beyond his usual control, it worked like 
 magic, and one by one they passed before him, the 
 tauntingly beautiful aerial figures of his visions, the 
 angelic forms of his ideals, and if under his hands there 
 had been any tools he would have fallen upon them and 
 upon the clay like a famished man on bread. He threw 
 
 145
 
 146 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 himself down on his lonely bed in his room through which 
 magic had passed, and slept heavily until Mrs. Kenny 
 pounded on the door and roused him an hour before 
 his train. 
 
 At Fonda, in the shed, he climbed stiffly from his 
 cab, his head aching, his eyes drunk with sleep. All there 
 was of brute in him was rampant, and anything that 
 came in his way would have to bear the brunt of his 
 unbalanced spleen. 
 
 Falutini, a great bunch of rags in his hand, was at 
 the side of the engine, wiping the brass and softly hum- 
 ming. Fairfax heard it 
 
 " Azuro puro, 
 Cielo azuro, 
 Mia Maddalena . . ." 
 
 " Stop that infernal bellow," he said, " will you ? " 
 
 The Italian lifted himself upright and responded in 
 his own tongue 
 
 "I work, I slave, I endure. Now I may not sing? 
 Macche," he cried defiantly, " I will sing, I will." 
 
 He threw his chest out, his black eyes on Tony's cross 
 blue ones. He burst out carolling 
 
 " Ah Mia Maddalena." 
 
 Fairfax struck his face; the Italian sprang at him like 
 a cat. Falutini was as tall as Fairfax, more agile and with 
 a hard head. However, with one big blow, Fairfax sent 
 him whirling, and as he struck and felt the flesh and blood 
 he discovered how glorious a thing a fight is, how nerve 
 relaxing, and he received the other's assault with a kind 
 of ecstasy. They were not unequally matched. Falutini's 
 skin and muscles were like toughened velvet; he was the 
 cock of his village, a first-rate boxer; and Tony's muscles 
 were of iron, but Fairfax was mad and gloomy, and the 
 Italian was desperate and disgusted, and he made the 
 better show. 
 
 A few men lounged in and one called out: "You 
 darned cusses are due to start in ten minutes." 
 
 Fairfax just then had his arm round the Italian's 
 neck, the close cropped head came under his chin, and as 
 Fairfax panted and as he smelt the garlic that at first
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 147 
 
 had nauseated him in his companion, he was about to 
 lay his man when the same voice that called before, 
 yelled in horror 
 
 " Look out, for God's sake, Fairfax, he's got a knife." 
 
 At the word, Fairfax gave a wrench, caught his com- 
 panion's right hand with his left and twisted the wrist, 
 and before he knew how he had accomplished it, he had 
 flung the man and knife from him. The knife hit Number 
 Twenty-four and rattled and the fireman fell in a lump on 
 the ground. Fairfax stood over him. 
 
 " What a mean lout you are," he said in the jargon he 
 had learned to speak, "what a mean pup. Now you 
 get up, Tito, and clear out." 
 
 The fellow rose with difficulty, white, trembling, 
 punched a little about the face, and breathing like a 
 saw-mill. Some one handed the knife to Fairfax. 
 
 "It never was made in America. It's a deadly 
 weapon. Ugh, you onion ! " 
 
 The Italian wiped the sweat from his forehead with 
 his shirt sleeve and spat out on the floor. 
 
 Fairfax felt better than he had felt for years. He went 
 back to his engine. 
 
 " Get up, Tito," he commanded his fireman ; " you 
 get in quickly or I'll help you up. Give me the oil can, 
 will you ? " he said. And Tito, trembling, his teeth dry 
 between his lips, obeyed. 
 
 Fairfax extended his hand, meeting his companion's 
 eyes for the first time, and said frankly 
 
 " My fault. No hard feeling, Tito. Bene benissimo." 
 
 He smiled and slapped the Italian on the back almost 
 affectionately. Tito saw that radiant light for the first 
 time the light smile. The old gentleman had said a man 
 could win the world with an expression like that upon his 
 face. 
 
 "Keep your knife, Falutini; cut up garlic with it: 
 don't use it on me, amico partner." 
 
 They went to work without a word further on the part 
 of either, and Number Twenty-four slipped out on to the 
 switch and was wedded to the local on the main line. 
 
 Fairfax was relieved in mind, and the morbid horror 
 of his crisis had been beaten and shaken out. 
 
 "What brutes we are," he thought, "what brutes
 
 148 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 and animals. It is a wonder that any spirit can grow its 
 wings at any time/' 
 
 He drew up into a station and stopped, and, leaning 
 out of his window, watched the passengers board the 
 train. Fluff, pluff, pant, pant. The steal and flow and 
 glide, the run and the motion that his hand on the throttle 
 controlled and regulated, became oftentimes musical to 
 him, and when he was morose he would not let the glide 
 and the roll run to familiar melodies in his head, above 
 all, no Southern melodies. " Tramp, tramp, tramp, the 
 boys are marching," that was the favourite with Number 
 Twenty-four. He had used to whistle it as he modelled 
 in his room in New Orleans, where the vines grew around 
 his window and Maris made molasses cake and brought 
 it up hot when the syrup was thick on the side, and down- 
 stairs a voice would call, " Emmeline, oh, Emmeline." 
 That sacred voice . . . ! When Number Twenty-four was 
 doing her thirty miles an hour, that was the maximum 
 speed of the local, her wheels were inclined to sing 
 
 " Flow gently, sweet Afton, 
 Among thy green braes : ' 
 Flow gently, I'll sing thee 
 A song in thy praise. 
 My Mary's asleep 
 By thy murmuring stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, 
 Disturb not her dream." 
 
 And little Gardiner leaned hard against his arm and Bella 
 ran upstairs to escape the music because she did not like 
 to cry, and his aunt's dove-like eyes reproached him for 
 his brutal flight. He would not hear any ballads; but 
 to-night, no sooner had he rolled out again into the open 
 country than he began to hum unconsciously the first 
 tune the wheels suggested. They were between the 
 harvest fields and in the moonlight lay the grain left by 
 the reapers. 
 
 " Cielo azuro 
 Giornata splendida, 
 Mia Maddalena." 
 
 Fairfax laughed when he recognized it. He glanced 
 over at Falutini who was leaning out of his window
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 149 
 
 dejectedly. At the next station, whilst the engine let 
 off steam, Fairfax called to his fireman, and the man, as 
 he turned his face to his chief, looked more miserably 
 homesick than revengeful. 
 
 " I used to know a chap from Italy ! " Fairfax said 
 in his halting Italian, " a molto bravo diavolo. Shake 
 her down, Tito, and brace her up a little, will you? " 
 
 The fireman bent to the furnace, its blast red on his 
 face; from under the belly of the engine the sparks sang 
 as they fell into the water gutter along the track. 
 
 " My chap was a marble cutter from Carrara." 
 
 Tito banged the door of the furnace. "I too am from 
 Carrara." 
 
 " Good ! " cried Fairfax, " good enough." And to 
 himself he said : " I'll be darned if I ever knew Benvenuto 
 Cellini's real name ! " 
 
 " Carrara," continued his companion, " is small. 
 He may have been a cousin. What was his name ? " 
 
 " Benvenuto Cellini," replied Tony, easily, and rang 
 his bell. 
 
 Once more they rolled out into the night. As they 
 drove through the country Fairfax saw the early moon- 
 light lie along the tracks, sifting from the heavens like a 
 luminous snow. No breeze stirred and over the grain 
 fields the atmosphere hung hot and heavy, and they 
 rushed through a sea of heat and wheat and harvest 
 smells. The wind of their going made a stir, and as 
 Fairfax peered out from his window his head was blown 
 upon by the wind of the speed. 
 
 Falutini from his side of the cab said, "Benvenuto 
 Cellini. That is not a Carrara man, no, no." 
 
 " I never knew him by any other name," said the 
 engineer. "I like Italians." He threw this cheerfully 
 over his shoulder at his inferior. 
 
 There was a childlike and confiding smile on the 
 Italian's face; brutal as all Italian peasants are, brutal 
 but kindly and unsuspicious as a child, ready to love and 
 ready to hate. 
 
 " Only you mustn't use your knife ; it's not well thought 
 of in America. You'll get sent to gaol." 
 
 The Limited whistled from around a curve, came 
 roaring toward them, tore past them, cutting the air, and
 
 150 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 Fairfax's local plugged along when the mile-a-minute 
 left them. Tony was conscious that as he hummed the 
 sound grew full and louder; he was accompanied by a 
 voice more assured than his own, and in melodious 
 fraternity the two men sang together. So they took their 
 train in.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE Kennys did not know what had happened to Misther 
 Fairfax. He sang on the stairs now and again as he had 
 done when he first came to Nut Street. He bought the 
 children sweet Jackson balls and the baby nearly died 
 from "wan in its troat," and his mother picked him up 
 by his socks and rattled the sticky sweet out of the child's 
 larynx, and the cat finished it. 
 
 Tony's foreman was asked in to have supper and a 
 late cup of coffee, and Miss Cora Kenny, whom " Pop " 
 had sent to the Troy convent the first week of Antony's 
 appearance in the Gents' Boarding and Lodging House, 
 came home for a Catholic holiday, and she helped her 
 mother. They made macaroni for Tito Falutini " high 
 Falutini," as Mrs. Kenny called him. The name stuck, 
 and the macaroni stuck as well, fast to the plate; but the 
 Italian, in bashful gratitude, his eyes suffused with smoke 
 and tears, ate gratefully, gesticulating his satisfaction, and 
 Cora Kenny studied him from the stove where she slaved 
 to tempt the appetites of Fairfax and his friend. 
 
 Fairfax was proud of Falutini: he was not an ordinary 
 acquaintance; he sang after supper, standing stiffly in a 
 corner of the kitchen, his red shirt well opened at the 
 throat, and his moustache like black velvet above his red 
 lips. 
 
 " He sings betther than the theayter, Misther Fairfax," 
 Mr. Kenny said ; " it makes yer eyes thrick ye," and blew 
 his nose, and Cora asked the singer softly if he could give 
 them " When the band begins to play," or " Gallagher's 
 Daughter Belle." Tito smiled hopefully, and when Fairfax 
 laughingly translated, assured Cora Kenny by means of 
 Fairfax again, that if determination could make a man 
 
 151
 
 152 FA1KFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 learn a foreign song, he would sing her "Gallagher's 
 Daughter Belle " next Saturday night. 
 
 " Ah," she breathed, " she'd not be home then ! ' 
 
 "No," said Kenny, who was a lazy husband but a 
 remarkable father, " that she wud not ! " 
 
 The Italian fireman and the Irish lodging-house 
 keeper's daughter gazed in each other's eyes. " Gallagher's 
 Daughter Belle" . . . dum . . . dum . . . Fairfax 
 hummed it, he knew it. Kenny's daughter Cora that 
 would be more to the point: and he thought of Molly. 
 He had not seen her since he had kissed her a fortnight 
 before. Cora said she had never been bold before, had 
 never let herself think how jealous she was, but to-night 
 Mr. Tito High-Falutini's eyes made her a new woman. 
 Cora said to her mother over her shoulder 
 
 " Shure, Molly Shannon's the onlucky gurl." 
 
 "How's that, Cora?" 
 
 " Lost her job." 
 
 " No ! " exclaimed Mrs. Kenny, sympathetically, " and 
 with what doin'?" 
 
 Shure, the foreman's daughter was a chum with Cora. 
 The boss had made the girl prisents of collars, and it 
 seemed, so Bridget said Cora with exquisite subtlety 
 dropped her voice, and after a second Mrs. Kenny 
 exclaimed 
 
 " Cora, you're a bad gurl to hark to such goings on, 
 much less belave thim," and pushed her daughter back 
 and brought out herself the crowning delicacy of 
 the feast, a dish that needed no foreign help to compose, 
 steaming praties cooked in their shimmies, as she ex- 
 pressed it. Cora sat down by High-Falutini, Mrs. Kenny 
 went into the next room to her littlest children, and 
 Kenny lit a fresh pipe, held the bowl in his hand, and 
 opposite his distractingly pretty little daughter kept a 
 thoughtful eye upon the pair. And Fairfax went upstairs 
 two steps at a time. 
 
 It was after eleven, dense and hot, but he had gone up 
 eagerly. Of late, whenever he had a few spare moments 
 he took them, and all Sundays he remained in his room, 
 There was an odour in the apartment, one that persistently 
 rpse above the tenement smells, a damp, moist, earthy
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 153 
 
 perfume, to Fairfax delicious beyond words. Mosquitoes 
 were rampant, but he had been brought up in a mosquito- 
 ridden country, and he had rigged a bit of muslin across 
 his window, and burned Mrs. Kenny's gas with heartless 
 inconsideration. 
 
 On a small wooden stool stood something covered 
 with cloths damped night and morning by Fairfax, and 
 during the day by Matty Kenny, a public-school girl of 
 twelve years of age, a pretty, half-witted little creature, 
 whom of all Nut Street Fairfax liked and whom he blindly 
 trusted. Between school hours the little girl ran up and 
 patted with a sponge the mysterious image in Misther 
 Fairfax's hall room. Tell? Ah, shure, Misther Fairfax, 
 cross Jjer heart and hope to die but she'd not. As her 
 duties consisted in tidying Antony's room, her visits were 
 not remarked. Now Antony lifted off the first cloth; 
 he drew out the stool under the light, flung off his coat, 
 rolled up his sleeves, loosened his cravat, got from his 
 drawer a small spatular instrument, and looking at his 
 unveiled work, meditatively wiped the dried clay from his 
 tool. Then he drew off the last bit of cheesecloth, un- 
 covering a statuette modelled in clay with great delicacy 
 and great assurance. The gaslight fell yellow on it 
 and the little statue seemed to swim, to oscillate and 
 illumine. It was the figure of a little girl, her hair loose 
 around her face, holding to her cheek a dead blackbird. 
 The art of the work was its great sincerity, the calm, 
 assured modelling, the tender truthfulness; the form of 
 the child, her dress, even her strapped shoes were only 
 indicated, nevertheless it was a perfect bit of realism, 
 though crude. But the head, the attitude, the cheek and 
 the face, the little caressing enfolding hands, were Greek 
 in their perfect execution. 
 
 A flush rose on the young man's face, his eyes 
 brightened, he gave a soft touch here and there with the 
 little instrument, but he had done all he could to this 
 creation. It was only in perishable clay, it must crumble 
 and dry; how could he perpetuate it? He thought of 
 having it cast in terra-cotta, but how and where? The 
 figure vacillated in the gaslight, and taunted him with its 
 perishability, its evanescence, frail, transient as childhood 
 is transient. "Bella," he mused before it, "little
 
 154 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 cousin." His right hand had not quite lost its cunning, 
 then? He could construct and direct a locomotive, but 
 he had not lost all his skill. For what the statue proved 
 to him, for its evidence of his living art and his talent, 
 he loved it, he turned it and viewed it on all sides, whistling 
 softly under his breath, not morbid about his tunes now. 
 
 Tito High-Falutini pushed the door open. " Goin' 
 home, Tony, la Signora Kenni has turned me out." 
 
 Fairfax pointed to his statue. " Look. If we were 
 in Carrara somebody would lend me a quarry or I would 
 steal one, and turn little Bella into a snow image." He 
 spoke in English, entirely uncomprehended by his com- 
 panion. He put his hand on Tito's arm. 
 
 "Did you do that, Tony? It is valuable. In Italy 
 we make terra-cotta figures like that and sell them." 
 
 " Do you think, Tito," his companion replied, " that 
 I would sell little Bella for a few lire, you commercial 
 traveller?" 
 
 Tito was acquainted with the Italian quarter, he 
 would find some one who baked in terra-cotta. They had 
 brought their trades with them. Tony could do others: 
 a Savoyard with a hand-organ, those things were very 
 gentile, very brave indeed, and money, said Tito, gloating, 
 money, why that would cost a dollar at least. 
 
 Fairfax covered up the clay and pushed the stool 
 back in its corner. 
 
 " You can make a fool of yourself, too," he said good- 
 humouredly, and pushed Falutini out. " Go home and 
 dream of Kenny's daughter Cora, and don't forget to buy 
 a can of crude oil and order a half dozen of those cock- 
 screws. Good-night." He banged the door. 
 
 He undressed, still softly whistling, unpinned the 
 curtain from the window, and what there was of heat 
 and freshness came into the room with the mosquitoes 
 that had huddled at the glass and the sill. He had 
 heard Cora Kenny's information: Molly had lost her 
 place because she would not do what the boss wanted. 
 They always wanted one thing in the collar factories. 
 The boss was a beast. He heaved a deep sigh. He 
 had not been lonely the last fortnight, his work had 
 absorbed him. There was no way for him to go on with 
 it, he had no time, nor means. It had brought him near
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 155 
 
 to his people, to his mother, to his kinsmen, to the child 
 who had died, to the one that remained. But he knew 
 his loneliness would return, his need of companionship, 
 of expression and life, and he was too healthy, too strong 
 to be nourished by his sentimental thought of the child- 
 woman or to live on the sale of terra-cotta statues. He 
 cradled his young head with its fair hair on his arm and 
 fell asleep, and over the yards the harvest moon rose 
 yellow and shone through the small window and on 
 Antony. He might have been a boy asleep at school, 
 his face looked so young and so unstained, and the same 
 light shone on the angel of the resurrection at the gate of 
 the rural cemetery, on Gardiner's little grave in Woodlawn, 
 and on his mother's grave in New Orleans, where the 
 brick,.~walls keep the coffins high above the Mississippi's 
 tide and silt. 
 
 The moonlight could not penetrate to the corner 
 where, under the damp cloths, Bella wept over the black- 
 bird pressed against her cheek.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 FAIRFAX expected to find a melancholy, wet-eyed little 
 creature with a hard-luck story when he went to Troy, 
 and although he knew that Molly would never reproach 
 him, he knew as well that he had treated her very badly. 
 From the day he had asked her to become Mrs. Antony 
 Fairfax, and heard Cora Kenny's news, he had not been 
 near his sweetheart. His sweetheart ! Since he had read 
 " The Idylls of the King " in his boyhood, no woman had 
 seemed too high or too fine for him : he had been Lancelot 
 to Guinevere, the Knight to the Lady: Molly Shannon 
 had not been in any romance he had ever read. 
 
 He found her sitting among her lodging-house keeper's 
 children in a room tidied by her own hands. During 
 her leisure, she had made herself a pink gingham dress 
 with small white rosebuds on it, and around her neck a 
 low white collar she had pinned with a tortoise-shell 
 brooch. Her dress was the simplest Fairfax had ever 
 seen her wear. It was cool and plain, and the Irish girl's 
 milk-white skin, her auburn hair, her eyes with the black 
 flecks in them, her young round breast, her bare fore-arm, 
 as she rocked Patsy O'Brien, were charming, and her cry, 
 as Fairfax came in, and the hands she pressed to her heart 
 were no less charming. 
 
 She sprang up, her work fell to the floor: she stood 
 deathly white and trembling. Her emotion, her love, 
 affected the young man very deeply. He did not think 
 of the obstacles between them, of her station, or of any- 
 thing as he came into Mrs. O'Brien's parlour-bedroom 
 amongst her six ubiquitous children and disturbed the 
 cradle to get to Molly Shannon. He thought of one fact 
 only, that he had kissed her: how had he forgotten the 
 honey of it for a fortnight? Without so much as bidding 
 
 156
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 157 
 
 her good-morning, he repeated the ecstasy and kissed 
 her. She had time to grow faint and to regain her life 
 in his arms, and under her happy breath she whispered: 
 "Ah, I must quiet Patsy. Ah, let me go, he'll hurt his 
 throat." And she bent, blooming and heart-breakingly 
 happy, over the cradle. 
 
 Mrs. Kenny called him as he went past the door. 
 " Shure," she said, " I've got bad news for ye, Misther 
 Fairfax, dear." 
 
 He stopped on the threshold. " There is only one 
 death on the earth that could give me any pain, Mrs. 
 Kenny. I reckon it's " 
 
 " It's not death then," she hastened, " shure it's 
 a little thing, but poor Matty's that crazy that the child 
 has gone out to her aunty's and wurra a bit will she come 
 home." 
 
 " Matty ! " Fairfax exclaimed. 
 
 " Shure, the moniment in your bedroom, Misther 
 Fairfax." 
 
 He flew upstairs. The corner inhabited for him by a 
 fairy companion was empty. The image of his talent, 
 of his little love, of his heart's hope, had disappeared. 
 Mrs. Kenny did not follow him upstairs as one would 
 have supposed that she would do. He locked his door, 
 the cloths lay in a pile, damp and soggy. Why had they 
 not left the fragments the precious morsels? His eyes 
 filled with impotent, angry grief; he tore his table drawer 
 open and found the designs which he had made for the 
 figure. The sketches seemed crude and poor beside the 
 finished work whose execution had been inspired. This 
 destruction unchained again his melancholy. He was 
 overwhelmed; the accident seemed like a brutal insistence 
 of Destiny, and he seemed bound to the coarse, hard 
 existence to which he had taken in desperation. With 
 this destruction he saw as well the wiping out of his life 
 of Bella. 
 
 Ah, at Troy that day he had done more than break a 
 clay image of her. He opened the door as if he would 
 have called to Mrs. Kenny, then slammed it, unable to 
 speak from excitement, and a dogged look crossed his 
 face. The night was muggy, his throat burned with a
 
 158 FAIEFAX AND HIS PKIDE 
 
 sudden thirst, and he exulted that it did so. On his 
 empty room, empty to him for ever, for the figure in. the 
 corner had disenchanted it of all its horrors for fourteen 
 happy days and nights, he looked once and then he fled. 
 He threw himself down the stairs and out into the late 
 mid-summer night. 
 
 The coloured porter at the Delavan put him to bed at 
 one o'clock in a comfortable room. As the fellow's 
 black face bent above him, Tony, who saw it blur and 
 waver before his intoxicated eyes, murmured 
 
 " Emmy, Emmy, don't tell my mother, and wake me at 
 seven, for I run out at nine sharp."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE paymaster, Peter Rainsford, had found little in 
 West Albany to excite the tepid interest he still retained 
 in life, but Tony Fairfax, the driver of Number Twenty- 
 four, had attracted his attention. Each time that Fairfax 
 came- to report Rainsford made a vain effort to engage 
 him in conversation. The agent wondered what the 
 engine-driver's story was, and having one of his own, 
 hoped for Fairfax's sake that there was anything but a 
 class resemblance between them. 
 
 Detained late this night at his desk, he pushed back 
 his lamp to contemplate Tito Falutini, who, his hat 
 pressed against his red flannel breast, his teeth sparkling, 
 came in to report. Tito told a tale in a jargon which only 
 an etymologist could have sifted into words. 
 
 "Well, what do you think has become of him?" 
 Rainsford asked. 
 
 The Italian gesticulated with his hat far and wide. 
 
 " You took the train to Fonda alone, without an 
 engineer, Falutini? How was it the fellows didn't stop 
 you at Fonda? It doesn't seem possible." 
 
 The official opened a ledger and ran his eye over the 
 names. 
 
 " I can put Steve Brodie on Number Twenty-four 
 to-morrow morning. You should have reported at once 
 in West Albany, Falutini." 
 
 The name of Steve Brodie was intelligible to Tito. 
 " Nota io," he said, " not a fire for any man, only Toni." 
 
 Rainsford wrote a few moments in his ledger. " Want 
 me to strike your name right off the books now, Falutini? 
 I've a good mind to do it anyway. You should have 
 reported at nine this morning." 
 
 " Want to find Fairfax," said the Italian. 
 
 159
 
 160 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 The disappearance did not speak well for the young 
 man in whom the boss had taken an interest. 
 
 " Has he paid up at Kenny's ? " Rainsf ord asked 
 hopelessly. 
 
 Falutini did not understand. " Signora Kenni," 
 informed the fireman, " mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." 
 Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford understand, had left 
 his clothes and belongings. 
 
 "Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at 
 first." 
 
 "No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he 
 broke forth into an explanation from which Rainsford 
 vainly tried to create some order. Statues and terra- 
 cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of some 
 property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence. 
 
 " I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go 
 over and see Mrs. Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your 
 engine, and you look out for yourself, my man, and don't 
 get bounced when you come in to report to-morrow." 
 
 Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom- 
 parlour of the first-class hotel (Gents only). "When he 
 came in and sat down in the midst of the Irish family 
 Rainsford did not know that he was the second gentleman 
 that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung 
 in the window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly 
 so, and her account was full of colour; and the young 
 man's character was drawn by a woman's lips, with a 
 woman's tenderness. 
 
 " Ah, wurra sor," she finished, " Oi cud go down on 
 me knees to him if it wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was 
 an evil day when that Hitalian came to the dure. Wud 
 ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he 
 should view sacred relics," "wud ye feel like goin' up to 
 his room and castin' an eye ? " 
 
 Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking 
 a man at a disadvantage, but consoling himself with the 
 thought that Fairfax's disappearance warranted the 
 invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm, stood by 
 his side, and called over the objects as though she were 
 a showman at a museum. 
 
 "That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, 
 and them's his little ornyments an' foolin's in order on
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 161 
 
 the top. Matty reds his room up, an' never a hand but 
 mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a drawer 
 open. " His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with 
 me own hands and charges him as though he was me son ; 
 an' there is his crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with 
 her thumb, " stud the image, bad cess to the Hitalian an' 
 his likes, Mr. Eainsford, an' many's the time I've stud 
 beyont the dure an' heard him sing and whustle beautiful, 
 whilst he was a-carvin' of it." 
 
 Eainsford looked at a small design pinned against the 
 wall : he considered it long. 
 
 " Do ye think that he's kilt then ? " asked the Irish 
 woman. 
 
 The paymaster returned briskly. " No, I don't 
 think so. I hope he has not come to any harm." 
 
 " His readin' buks, sor," she said, " wud ye cast an 
 eye?" 
 
 But here Eainsford refused, and returning to his own 
 lodgings higher up in the town, and on a better scale, 
 went home thoughtful, touched, and with a feeling of 
 kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he 
 could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man 
 from somewhere appeared with the request that Mrs. 
 Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The mysterious lodger 
 enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no 
 address; nor had the coloured man any information for 
 Nut Street, and a decided antipathy existed between 
 George Washington and Mary Kenny. She was pale 
 when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into 
 his trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to 
 the unopened packet of his mother's treasures. She was 
 unconscious of what sacred thing she touched, but she 
 was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. Peter Eains- 
 ford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the 
 elusive Fairfax, was only disappointed. 
 
 At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, 
 Eainsford was reading in his room when Fairfax himself 
 came in. 
 
 "Why, hello, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not 
 that of a disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. 
 "You are just two weeks late in reporting Number
 
 162 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came, whatever 
 the reason for the delay." 
 
 Eainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. 
 Fairfax, surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smilod 
 " Thanks." He took the chair Eainsford offered. " Why 
 thank you, Eainsford." He took a cigar which Eainsford 
 handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off 
 duty. 
 
 "Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious 
 about," said the paymaster. "Where on earth did you 
 go to, Fairfax? You don't know how you have mystified 
 us all here, and in fact, me from the first." 
 
 " There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young 
 man, still smiling ; " I should have wondered about you, 
 Mr. Eainsford, if I had had either the time or the courage ! " 
 
 "Courage, Fairfax?" 
 
 "Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar 
 between his fingers, " courage to break away from the 
 routine I've been obliged to follow." 
 
 Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty 
 years of age. The thin hair, early grey, came meekly 
 around the temples of a finely made and serious brow, 
 but the features of Eainsford's face were delicate, the 
 skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There 
 was an extreme melancholy in his expression; when 
 defeat had begun to write its lines upon his face, over the 
 humiliating stain, Eesignation had laid a hand. 
 
 "Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," 
 the agent said ; " I am just a plain fellow, that's all, and 
 for that reason, when I saw that one of the hands on my 
 pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very young one 
 too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's" 
 he hesitated a little " since I have heard something 
 about you from that good soul, why, I am more than 
 interested, I am determined ! " 
 
 Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, 
 and Eainsford noted the youthful ness of the line of his 
 neck and face, the high idealism of the brow, the beautiful 
 mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there. 
 
 "Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, 
 you're a boy. Thank God for it, it is not too late. Would 
 you care to tell me what brought you here like this?
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 163 
 
 I won't say what misfortune brought you here, Fairfax/* 
 he put his nervous hand to his lips " but what folly 
 on your part." 
 
 Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for 
 hard luck and the harvest of wild oats. 
 
 Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are 
 all dead." 
 
 "But you have influential friends?" 
 '' No," said Fairfax, " not one." 
 
 :( You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax." 
 
 The young man started. "But what makes you 
 think that?" 
 
 " Falutini told me." 
 
 Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor Tito. He's a judge, 
 [ daresay." His face clouded, grew quite stern before 
 Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said slowly, "I 
 think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, 
 but I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven 
 me to a sort of revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of 
 my disdain God knows of what and of whom." More 
 quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not 
 beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch 
 and crawl and live as a starving artist must when he is 
 making his way. I wanted to make a living first, and I 
 was too proud to take the thorny way an artist must." 
 
 Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and 
 walked across Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent 
 order, plainly furnished but well supplied with the things 
 a man needs to make him comfortable. There were 
 even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, book- 
 shelves filled with books and a student's lamp soft under 
 a green shade. As he turned back to the paymaster 
 Fairfax had composed himself and said tranquilly 
 
 " I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me 
 in the ledger, haven't you, Rainsford?" 
 
 " Note ? " repeated the other vaguely. " Oh, your bad 
 conduct report. Well, rather." 
 
 " Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four ? " 
 
 " Steve Brodie." 
 
 Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive 
 an engine all right, and so do I, Rainsford." 
 
 " You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax."
 
 164 
 
 " I don't want to come back to West Albany and to 
 the yards," said the engineer. 
 
 " I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said 
 musingly, "but I have some friends still. I want you 
 to let me lend you some money, a very small sum." 
 
 The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his 
 hand impulsively. 
 
 " There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are 
 the first chap who has put out a rope to me. I did have 
 twenty-five cents given me once, but otherwise " 
 
 " I mean it sincerely, Fairfax." 
 
 " Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in 
 his voice, " you are a fine brand of failure." 
 
 " Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said the other, " I will, but not in 
 the way you mean. I reckon I must have felt what kind 
 of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be here. At any rate 
 you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite under- 
 stand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't 
 want to drive in and out from West Albany. Could you 
 do anything for me at the general company, Rainsford? 
 Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take a local 
 though I'm up to an express." 
 
 " No," said Rainsford, " you mustn't think of driving 
 engines; I won't lift my hand to help you." 
 
 " It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, 
 after a second, " all I want." Then he said, " I've got 
 to have it. . . ." 
 
 "Why I'll lend you enough money, Fairfax, to pay 
 your passage to France ! " 
 
 " Stop ! " cried the young man with emotion, " it's 
 too late." 
 
 " Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice 
 and personality charming him as it charmed others. 
 "Why, you are nothing but a big, headlong boy! You 
 have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at 
 your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all 
 your life in the cab of an engine? Why, you are 
 insane." 
 
 " Stop," cried Fairfax again, " for the love of 
 heaven. . . ." 
 
 Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 165 
 
 his own lost promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to 
 him that through this young man he might in a way buy 
 back the lost years. 
 
 " I'll not stop till I have used every means to make 
 you see the hideous mistake you're making." 
 
 "Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made 
 me this offer the day before I left Nut Street, I would 
 have been in France by this. My God ! " he murmured 
 beneath his breath. " How I would have escaped ! " 
 checked himself with great control for so young a man 
 and so ardent a man. He was a foot taller than his desk- 
 bowed pale companion, and he laid his hand impulsively 
 on his chief's shoulder. 
 
 " If you can give me a job, Rainsford, do so, will you ? 
 I know \ have no right to ask you, after the way I have 
 treated the Company, but I am married. I have married 
 Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at Sheedy's." 
 He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, 
 then, with something of his old humour, he said, " There 
 are two of us now, Rainsford, and I have got to make our 
 living."
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV 
 
 DEATH does not always make the deepest graves. His 
 art was buried deepest of all, and there was just one 
 interest in his life, and that was not his wife. He was 
 kind to her, hut if he had beaten her she would have 
 kissed his hand; she could not have loved him better. 
 Her life was " just wrapped round him." He treated her 
 as a lady, and he was a gentleman. Her manners were 
 always soft and gentle, coming from a sweet good heart. 
 She grew thinner, and her pride in him and her love for 
 him and her humility made Molly Fairfax beautiful. 
 There was a great deal of cruelty in the marriage and in 
 their mating. It was no one's fault, and the woman 
 suffered the most. Their rooms were in a white frame 
 building with green blinds, one of the old wooden houses 
 that remained long in Albany. It did not overlook the 
 yards, for Fairfax wanted a new' horizon. From her 
 window, Molly could see the docks, the river, the night 
 and day boats as they anchored, and she had time to 
 watch and know them all. Nothing in his working life 
 or in his associations coarsened Antony Fairfax; it would 
 have been better for him had it done so. She was not 
 married to an engineer, but to a gentleman, and he was 
 as chivalrous to her as though she had been the woman of 
 his dreams; but she spent much of the time weeping and 
 hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings, when he 
 came home to the meal that she prepared each day with 
 a greater skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he 
 would not break the silence throughout the evening, and 
 he did not dream that he had forgotten her. His new 
 express engine became his life. He drove her, cared for 
 her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There 
 were no bad notes against him at the office. His records 
 
 166
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 167 
 
 were excellent, and Rainsford had the satisfaction of 
 knowing that the man whom he had recommended was in 
 the right place. The irony of it all was that his marrying 
 Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it 
 tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He 
 had meditated as he drove his engine, facing the miles 
 before him as the machine ate them up, and these miles 
 began to take him into other countries. There was a 
 far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used 
 to glance up at the telegraph wires and poles they became 
 to him masts and riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and 
 from his own window of his little tenement apartment of 
 two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the old river 
 boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that 
 hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had 
 kissed ports whose names were thrilling, and in the nest 
 he had made his own, thinking to rest there, his growing 
 wings began to unprison and the nest to be too small. 
 There was no intoxication in the speed of his locomotive 
 to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated 
 and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of 
 his locomotive delighted him. She flew to his hand, and 
 the speed gave him joy. 
 
 At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the 
 glow and the glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure 
 skies, olive and grape vines brought their enchantment 
 around Fairfax, until No. Ill stood in an enchanted 
 country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or 
 blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with 
 Rainsford. The agent became his friend, and one Sunday 
 Fairfax led him into the Delavan House, and George 
 Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup 
 on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the 
 moment serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor 
 to Antony. 
 
 "Yas, sak, Mistah Kunnell Fairfax, sah! Mighty 
 glad to see yo', and the Capting ? Hyah in de window ? " 
 
 "Rainsford," said the young man, "isn't it queer? 
 I feel at home here. This dingy hotel and this smiling 
 old nigger, they are joys to me joys. To this very table 
 I have brought my own bitter food to eat and bitter water 
 to drink, and half forgotten their tastes as I have eaten
 
 168 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 the Delavan fare, and been cheered by this faithful old 
 darkey. Perhaps all the chaps round here aren't million- 
 aires or Depuysters, but there are no railroad men such 
 as I am lunching here, and I breathe again." 
 
 The two ate their tomato soup with relish. Poor 
 Molly was an indifferent cook, and the food at Rainsford's 
 hash-house was horrible. 
 
 " Don't come here often now, Fairfax, do you? " 
 
 " Every Sunday." 
 
 "Really? And do you bring Mrs. Fairfax?" 
 
 "No," frowned the young man, "and I wonder you 
 ask. Don't you understand that this is my holiday? 
 God knows I earn it." 
 
 Rainsford finished his soup. The plate was whisked 
 away, was briskly replaced by a quantity of small dishes 
 containing everything on the bill of fare from chicken to 
 pot-pie, and as Rainsford meditated upon the outlay, he 
 said 
 
 " She's a gentle, lovely creature, Fairfax. I don't 
 wonder you were charmed by her. She has a heart and 
 a soul." 
 
 Fairfax stared. " Why when did you see her ? " 
 
 He had never referred to his wife since the day he had 
 announced his marriage to his chief. 
 
 " She came on the day of the blizzard to the office to 
 bring a parcel for you. She wanted me to send it up the 
 line by the Limited to catch you at Utica." 
 
 " My knit waistcoat," nodded Fairfax. " I remember. 
 It saved my getting a chill. I had clean forgotten it. 
 She's a good girl." 
 
 Rainsford chose amongst the specimens of food. 
 
 " She is a sweet woman." 
 
 Here George Washington brought Fairfax the Sunday 
 morning Tribune, and folded it before his gentleman and 
 presented it almost on his knees. 
 
 " Let me git ye a teenty weenty bit mo' salid, 
 Kunnell?" 
 
 Fairfax unfolded the Tribune leisurely. "Bring some 
 ice-cream, George, and some srood cigars, and a little old 
 brandy. Yes, Rainsford. it isn't poison." 
 
 Fairfax read attentively, and his companion watched 
 him patiently, his own face lightened by the companionship
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 169 
 
 of the younger man. Fairfax glanced at the headlines 
 of the Tribune, said " By George ! " under his breath, 
 and bent over the paper. His face underwent a trans- 
 formation; he grew pale, read fixedly, then laughed, said 
 " By George ! " again, folded the paper up and put it in 
 his pocket. 
 
 The ice-cream was brought and described as " Panilla- 
 politan cream, sah," and Fairfax lit a cigar and puffed it 
 fast and then said suddenly 
 
 " Do you know what hate is, Eainsf ord ? I reckon 
 you don't. Your face doesn't bear any traces of it." 
 
 " Yes, Fairfax," said the other, " I know what it 
 is it's a disease which means battle, murder, and sudden 
 death." 
 
 The young man took the paper out of his pocket and 
 unfolded it, and Eainsford was surprised to see his hands 
 tremble, the beautiful clever hands with the stained 
 finger ends and the clean, beautiful palm. Falutini did 
 more work than Fairfax now. He slaved for his master. 
 
 " Bead that, Eainsford." He tapped a headline with 
 his forefinger. " It sounds like an event." 
 
 THE UNVEILING or THE ABYDOS SPHINX IN CENTRAL 
 
 PARK 
 
 CEDERSHOLM'S WONDERFUL PEDESTAL. 
 
 THE DIFFICULT TRANSPORTATION OF THE EGYPTIAN 
 
 MONUMENT FROM THE PORT TO THE PARK. 
 
 UNVEILING TO TAKE PLACE NEXT SATURDAY. 
 
 The article went on to speak of the dignified marble 
 support, and hinted at four prehistoric creatures in bronze 
 which were supposed to be the masterpieces of modern 
 sculpture. 
 
 Eainsford read it through. "Very interesting. An 
 event, as you say, Tony. Cedersholm has made himself 
 a great reputation." 
 
 "Damn him!" breathed the engineer. His heart was 
 beating wildly, he felt a suffocation in his breast. A 
 torrent of feeling swept up in him. No words could say 
 what a storm and a tempest the notice caused. 
 
 "Jealous," Eainsford thought. "Cedersholm has all 
 that poor Fairfax desires." 
 
 Overcome by the memories the headlines recalled,
 
 170 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 overcome by his anger and the injustice, Fairfax's face 
 grew white. 
 
 "Take a little more coffee, Kunnell," said George 
 Washington at his elbow. 
 
 " No." Antony repulsed him rudely. " Did you read 
 it all, Bainsford?" 
 
 "I think so. I dare say this will bring Cedersholm 
 close on a hundred thousand dollars." 
 
 " It will pave his way to hell one day, Eainsford," said 
 the engineer, leaning across the table. " It will indeed ! 
 Why, it is a monument of injustice and dishonour. Do 
 you know what that Sphinx rests on, Eainsford, do you 
 know?" 
 
 For a moment the railroad agent thought his friend 
 had lost his senses brooding over his discarded art, his 
 spoiled life. 
 
 "Four huge prehistoric creatures," Eainsford read 
 mildly. 
 
 Fairfax's lips trembled. "It rests on a man's heart 
 and soul, on his flesh and blood, on his bleeding wounds, 
 Eainsford. I worked in Cedersholm's studio, I slaved for 
 him night and day for eighteen months. I spilled my 
 youth and heart's blood there, I did indeed." His face 
 working, he tapped his friend's arm with his hand. " I 
 made the moulds for those beasts. I cast them in bronze, 
 right there in his studio. Every inch of them is mine, 
 Eainsford, mine. By ... you can't take it in, of course. 
 you don't believe me, nobody would believe me, that's 
 why I can do nothing, can't say anything, or I'd be 
 arrested as a lunatic. But Cedersholm's fame in this 
 instance is mine, and he has stolen it from me and shut 
 me out like a whipped dog. He thinks I am poor and 
 unbefriended, and he knows that I have no case. Why, 
 he's a hound, Eainsford, the meanest hound on the face 
 of the earth." 
 
 Eainsford soothed his friend, but Fairfax's voice was 
 low with passion, no one could overhear its intense tone. 
 
 " Don't for a moment think I have lost my senses. 
 If you don't believe me, give me a pencil and paper and 
 I'll sketch you what I mean." 
 
 Eainsford was very much impressed and startled. 
 " If what you say is true," he murmured.
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 171 
 
 And Fairfax, who had regained some of his control he 
 knew better than any one the futility of his miserable 
 adventure exclaimed 
 
 " Oh, it's true enough ; but there is nothing to do 
 about it. Cedersholm knows that better than any one 
 else." 
 
 He sat back, and his face grew dark and heavy with 
 its brooding. His companion watched him helplessly, 
 only half convinced of the truth of the statement. Fair- 
 fax lifted his eyes and naively exclaimed 
 
 " Isn't it cruel, Rainsf ord ? You speak of failures ; 
 did you ever see such a useless one as this? Cedersholm 
 and his beasts which they say right here are the best 
 things in modern sculpture, and me with my engine and 
 m J t*** He stopped. " Give me the bill/' he called to 
 George Washington. 
 
 The old darkey, used as he was to his gentleman's moods, 
 found this one stranger than usual. 
 
 " Anythin' wrong with the dinner, Kunnell ? " he 
 asked tremulously. "Very sorry, Capting. Fust time 
 yo'-" 
 
 Fairfax put the money in his hand. "All right, 
 George," he assured kindly, "your dinner's all right 
 don't worry. Good-bye." And he did not say as he usually 
 did, " See you next Sunday." For he had determined to 
 go down to New York for the unveiling of the monument.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE May afternoon, all sunshine and sparkle, had a wine 
 to make young hope spring from old graves and age forget 
 its years, and youth mad with its handicaps; a day to 
 inspire passion, talent, desire, and to make even goodness 
 take new wings. 
 
 With the crowd of interested and curious, Antony 
 Fairfax entered Central Park through the Seventy-second 
 Street gate. Lines of carriages extended far into Fifth 
 Avenue, and he walked along by the side of a smart 
 victoria where a pretty woman sat under her sunshade 
 and smiled on the world and spring. Fairfax saw that 
 she was young and worldly, and thought for some time of 
 his mother, of women he might have known, and when 
 the victoria passed him, caught the lady's glance as her 
 look wandered over the crowd. A May-day party of school 
 children spread over the lawn at his left, the pole's bright 
 streamers fluttering in the breeze. The children danced 
 gaily, too small to care for the unveiling of statues or for 
 ancient Egypt. The bright scene and the day's gladness 
 struck Antony harsh as a glare in weakened eyes. He was 
 gloomy and sardonic, his heart beating out of tune, his 
 genial nature had been turned to gall. 
 
 The Mall was roped off, and at an extempore gate a 
 man in uniform received the cards of admission. Fairfax 
 remembered the day he had endeavoured to enter the 
 Field Palace and his failure. 
 
 " I'm a mechanic," he said hastily to the gateman, " one 
 of Mr. Cedersholm's workmen." 
 
 The man pushed him through, and he went in with a 
 group of students from Columbia College. 
 
 In a corner of the Mall, on the site he had indicated 
 to the little cousins, rose a white object covered by a 
 
 172
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 173 
 
 sheeting, which fell to the ground. Among the two hun- 
 dred persons gathered were people of distinction. There 
 was to be speech-making. Fairfax did not know this or 
 who the speakers were to be. All that he knew or cared 
 was that at three o'clock of this Saturday his Beasts 
 his four primitive creatures were to be unveiled. He 
 wore his workday clothes, his Pride had led him to make 
 the arrogant display of his contempt of the class he had 
 deserted. His hat was pushed back on his blond head. 
 His blue eyes sparkled and he thrust his disfigured hands 
 into his pockets to keep them quiet. The lady beside 
 whose carriage he had stood came into the roped-off 
 enclosure, and found a place opposite Fairfax. Once 
 more her eyes fell on the workman's handsome face. He 
 looked out of harmony with the people who had gathered 
 to see the unveiling of Mr. Cedersholm's pedestal. 
 
 For the speakers, a desk and platform had been 
 arranged, draped with an American flag. Antony 
 listened coldly to the first address, a resume of the 
 dynasty in whose dim years the Abydos Sphinx was 
 hewn, and the Egyptologist's learning, the dust he stirred 
 of golden tombs, and the perfumes of the times that he 
 evoked, were lost to the up-state engineer who only gazed 
 on the veiled monument. 
 
 His look, however, returned to the desk, when C'eders- 
 holm took the place, and Fairfax, from the sole of his lame 
 foot to his fair head, grew cold. His bronze beasts were 
 not more hard and cold in their metallic bodies, nor was 
 the Sphinx more petrified. Cedersholm had aged, and 
 seemed to Fairfax to have warped and shrunk and to 
 stand little more than a pitiful suit of clothes with a 
 boutonniere in the lapel of the pepper-and-salt coat. There 
 was nothing impressive about the sleek grey head, though 
 his single eye-glass gave him distinction. The Columbia 
 student next to Fairfax, pushed by the crowd, touched 
 Antony Fairfax's great form and felt as though he had 
 touched a colossus. 
 
 Cedersholm spoke on art, on the sublimity of plastic 
 expression. He spoke rapidly and cleverly. His audience 
 interrupted him by gratifying whispers of " Bravo, 
 bravo," and the gentle tapping of hands. He was clearly 
 a favourite, a great citizen, a great New Yorker, and a
 
 174 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 great man. Directly opposite the desk was a delegation 
 from the Century Club, Cedersholm's friends all around 
 him. To Fairfax, they were only brutes, black and white 
 creatures, no more mummers in a farce. Cedersholm 
 did not speak of his own work. With much delicacy he 
 confined his address to the past. And his adulation of 
 antiquity showed him to be a real artist, and he spoke 
 with love of the relics of the perfect age. In closing, he 
 said 
 
 "Warm as may be our inspirations, great as may be 
 any modern genius, ardent as may be our labour, let each 
 artist look at the Abydos Sphinx and know that the climax 
 has been attained. We can never touch the antique 
 perfection again." 
 
 Glancing as he did from face to face, Cedersholm 
 turned toward the Columbia students who adored him and 
 whose professor in art he was. Searching the young 
 faces for sympathy, he caught sight of Fairfax. He 
 remembered who he was, their eyes met. Cedersholm 
 drank a glass of water at his hand, bowed to his audience, 
 and stepped down. He moved briskly, his head a little 
 bent, crossed the enclosure, and joined the lady whom 
 Fairfax had observed. 
 
 "That," Fairfax heard one of his neighbours say, "is 
 Mr. Cedersholm's fiancee, Mrs. Faversham." 
 
 Fairfax raised his eyes to the statue. There was a 
 slight commotion as the workmen ranged the ropes. 
 Then, very gracefully, evidently proud as a queen, the 
 lady, followed by Mr. Cedersholm, went up to the pedestal, 
 took the ropes in her gloved hands, and there was a flutter 
 and the conventional covering slipped and fell to the earth. 
 There was an exclamation, a murmur, the released voices 
 murmured their praise, Cedersholm was surrounded. 
 Fairfax, immovable, stood and gazed. 
 
 The pedestal was of shell-pink marble, carved in 
 delicate bas-relief. Many of the drawings Antony had 
 made. Isis with her cap of Upper and Lower Egypt, 
 Hathor with the eternal oblation the Sphinx. . . . God 
 and the Immortals alone knew who had made it. 
 
 On its great, impassive face, on its ponderous body, 
 there was no signature, no name. Under the four corners, 
 between Sphinx and pedestal, crouched four bronze
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 175 
 
 creatures, their forms and bodies visible between the 
 stones of the pink pedestal and the soft blue of the Egyptian 
 granite. The bold, severe modelling, their curious 
 primitive conception, the life and realism of the creatures 
 were poignant in their suggestion of power. The colour 
 of the bronze was beautiful, would be more beautiful still 
 as the years went on. The beasts supported the Egyptian 
 monument. They rested between the pedestal and the 
 Sphinx; they were the support and they were his. They 
 seemed, to the man who had made them, beautiful indeed. 
 Forgetting his outrage and his revenge, in the artist, 
 Fairfax listened timidly, eagerly, for some word to be 
 murmured in the crowd, some praise for his Beasts. 
 
 He heard many. 
 
 T;h"e students at his side were enthusiastic, they had 
 made studies from the moulds; moulds of the Beasts were 
 already in the Metropolitan Museum. The young critics 
 were lavish, profuse. They compared the creatures with 
 the productions of the Ancients. 
 
 " Cedersholm is a magician, he is one of the greatest 
 men of his time. . . ." 
 
 The man in working clothes smiled, but his expression 
 was gentler than it had been hitherto. He lifted his soft 
 hat and ran his fingers through his blond hair and remained 
 bareheaded in the May air that blew about him; his 
 fascinated eyes were fastened on the Abydos Sphinx, 
 magnetized by the calm, inscrutable melancholy, by the 
 serene indifference. The stony eyes were fixed on the 
 vistas of the new world, the crude Western continent, as 
 they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the 
 pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly 
 effaced footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race. 
 
 Who knew who had made this wonder ? 
 
 How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper- 
 and-salt suit, his boutonniere and single eye-glass, his 
 trembling heart. His heart trembled, but only Fairfax 
 knew it ; he felt that he held it between his hands. " He 
 must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What 
 difference did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or 
 not the Egyptian who had hewn the Sphinx had murdered 
 another man for stealing his renown ? After four thousand 
 years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew
 
 176 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown 
 sculptor there seemed a bond of union. 
 
 The students and the master had drifted away. 
 Cedersholm was in the midst of his friends. Fairfax 
 would not have put out his hand to take his laurel. His 
 spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater 
 sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing 
 apart from the crowd where Cedersholm was being con- 
 gratulated, Fairfax remarked the lady again, and that she 
 stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive, turning her 
 lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. 
 The young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's 
 greatness. He recalled the day, two years ago, when with 
 Bella and Gardiner he had come up before the opening in 
 the earth prepared for the pedestal. "Wait, wait, my 
 hearties ! " he had said. 
 
 Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the 
 unveiling of greater wonders, and Antony had come to 
 his unclaimed festival alone. .
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 HE said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, 
 and coffee as black as George Washington's smiling face 
 
 "I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't 
 you? I reckon you think I don't come up to the scratch, 
 do jou, old man ? I assure you that I went down to New 
 York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward, 
 mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of 
 people, but in his own studio, I intended to tell Ceders- 
 holm a few truths. Upon my honour, I believe I could 
 have killed him." 
 
 Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers 
 which he pressed slowly as he listened to his friend. 
 Antony's big hand was spread out on the table; its grip 
 would have been powerful on a man's throat. 
 
 " We often get rid of our furies on the way," said 
 Rainsford, slowly. "We keep them housed so long that 
 they fly away unobserved at length. And when at last we 
 open the door, and expect to find them ready with their 
 poisons, they've gone, vanished every one." 
 
 " Not in this case," Fairfax shook his head. " I 
 shall call on them all some day and they will all answer 
 me. But yesterday wasn't the time. You'll think me 
 poorer-spirited than ever, I daresay, but the woman he 
 is going to marry was there, a pretty woman, and she 
 seemed to love him." 
 
 Fairfax glanced up at the agent and saw only com- 
 prehension. 
 
 "Quite right, Tony." Rainsford returned Fairfax's 
 look over his glistening eyeglasses, cracked the pecan nut 
 and took out the meat. " I am not surprised." 
 
 Antony, who had taken a clipping from his wallet, 
 
 held it out. 
 
 177
 
 178 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 " Read this. I cut it out a week ago. Yesterday in 
 the Central Park old ambitions struck me hard. Read it." 
 
 The notice was from a Western paper, and spoke in 
 detail of a competition offered to American sculptors by 
 the State of California, for the design in plaster of a tomb. 
 The finished work was to be placed in the great new 
 cemetery in Southern California. The prize to be awarded 
 was ten thousand dollars and the time for handing in the 
 design a year. 
 
 " Not a very cheerful or inspiring subject, Tony." 
 
 On the contrary, Fairfax thought so. He leaned 
 forward eagerly, and Rainsford, watching him, saw a 
 transfigured man. 
 
 "Death/' said the engineer, "has taken everything 
 from me. Life has given me nothing, old man. I have a 
 feeling that perhaps now, through this, I may regain what 
 I have lost. ... I long to take my chance." 
 
 The other exclaimed sympathetically, " My dear 
 fellow, you must take it by all means." 
 
 Fairfax remained thoughtful a moment, then asked 
 almost appealingly 
 
 "Why, how can I do so? Such an effort would 
 cost my living, her living, the renting of a place to work 
 in. . . ." As he watched Rainsford's face his eyes kindled. 
 
 " I offered to lend you money once, Tony," recalled 
 his friend, " and I wish to God you'd taken the loan then, 
 because just at present " 
 
 The Utter Failure raised his near-sighted eyes, and the 
 look of disappointment on the bright countenance of the 
 engineer cut him to the heart. 
 
 "Never mind." Fairfax's voice was forced in its 
 cheerfulness. " Something or other will turn up, I 
 shall work Sundays and half-days, and I reckon I can put 
 it through. I am bound to," he finished ardently, "just 
 bound to." 
 
 Rainsford said musingly, "I made a little investment, 
 but it went to pot. I hoped I'm always hoping but 
 the money didn't double itself." 
 
 The engineer didn't hear him. He was already think- 
 ing how he could transform his kitchen into a studio, 
 although it had an east light. Just here Rainsford leaned 
 over and put his hand on Antony's sleeve.
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 179 
 
 " I want to say a word to you about your wife. I 
 don't think she's very well." 
 
 " Molly ? " answered his companion calmly. " She's 
 all right. She has a mighty fine constitution, and I never 
 heard her complain. When did you see her, Rainsford ? " 
 He frowned. 
 
 " Saturday, when you were in New York. You forgot 
 to send your pass-book, and I went for it myself." 
 
 " Well ? " queried Antony. " What then ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Fairfax gave me the book, and I stopped to 
 speak with her for a few moments. I find her very much 
 changed." 
 
 The light died from the young man's illumined face 
 where his visions had kindled a sacred fire. The realities 
 of life blotted it out. 
 
 " I'm not able to give Molly any distractions, that you 
 know." 
 
 " She doesn't want them, Tony." Rainsford looked 
 kindly and affectionately, almost tenderly, at him, and 
 repeated gently : " She doesn't want amusement, Tony." 
 
 And Fairfax threw up his head with a sort of despair 
 on his face 
 
 "My God, Rainsford/' he murmured, "what can I 
 
 do?" 
 
 "I'm afraid she's breaking her heart," said the older 
 man. " Poor little woman ! "
 
 CHAPTEK XXVII 
 
 IN the little room they used as parlour-kitchen and which 
 to one of the inhabitants at least was lovely, Fairfax 
 found Molly sitting by the window through which the 
 spring light fell. The evening was warm. Molly wore a 
 print dress, and in her bodice he saw that she had thrust 
 a spray of pink geranium from the window-boxes that 
 Antony had made and filled for her. Nothing that had 
 claim to beauty failed to touch his senses, and he saw the 
 charm of the picture in the pale spring light. He had 
 softly turned the door-handle, and as there was a hand- 
 organ playing without and Molly listening to the music, 
 he entered without her hearing him. 
 
 "Is it yourself ?" she exclaimed, startled. "You're 
 home early, Tony." 
 
 He told her that he had come to take her for a little 
 walk, and as she moved out of the light and came toward 
 him, he thought he knew what Eainsford had meant. 
 She was thin and yet not thin. The roundness had gone 
 from her cheeks, and there was a mild sadness in her eyes. 
 Reproached and impatient, suffering as keenly as she, he 
 was nevertheless too kind of heart and nature not to feel 
 the tragedy of her life. He drew her to him and kissed 
 her. She made no response, and feeling her a dead weight 
 he found that as he held her she had fainted away. He 
 laid her on the bed, loosened her dress, and bathed her 
 icy temples. Before she regained consciousness he saw 
 her pallor, and that she had greatly changed. He was 
 very gentle and tender with her when she came to herself; 
 and, holding her, said 
 
 "Molly, why didn't you tell me, dear? Why didn't 
 you tell me?" 
 
 180
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 181 
 
 She had thought he would be angry with her. 
 
 He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, 
 Molly?" 
 
 Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out 
 for. 
 
 He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be 
 glad of it, then she would be happy. She'd not let it 
 disturb him. It would be sure to be beautiful and have 
 his eyes and hair. 
 
 He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty 
 in her voice with its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her 
 fast beating pulse, her excitement. Below in the street the 
 organ played, " Gallagher's Daughter Belle," then changed 
 to ah, how could he bear it ! " My Old Kentucky 
 Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was 
 sacred to him. Was he to have a son? Was he to be a 
 father? He must make her happy, this modest, un- 
 demanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. 
 He kissed her and she clung to him, daring to whisper 
 something of her adoration and her gratitude. 
 
 When after supper he stood with her in the window 
 and looked out over the river where the anchored steamers 
 were in port for over Sunday, and the May sunset covered 
 the crude brick buildings with a garment of glory, he was 
 astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had 
 lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up 
 the geranium which Molly had worn at her breast and 
 which had fallen when she fainted, and put it in his button- 
 hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly whispered that 
 he would kill her with goodness, and that " she was heart 
 happy." 
 
 "Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then 
 we'll have old Rainsford to supper, and you must tell 
 him so ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 FAIRFAX, stirred as he had been to the depths by his 
 visit to New York, awake again to the voices of his visions, 
 could give but little of himself to his home life or to his 
 work. The greatest proof of his kindly heart was that he 
 did not let Molly see his irritation or his agony of discon- 
 tent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an 
 Irish wife ! Why, why, was he otherwise ? In his useless 
 rebellion the visions came and told him why told him 
 that to be born as he was, gifted as he was, was the most 
 glorious thing and the most suffering thing in the world. 
 
 To the agent who had accepted the Fairfax hospitality 
 and come to supper, Tony said 
 
 "To ease my soul, Peter, I want to tell you of some- 
 thing I did." 
 
 Molly had washed the dishes and put them away, and, 
 with a delicate appreciation of her husband's wish to be 
 alone with his friend, went into the next room. 
 
 "After mother died my old nigger mammy in New 
 Orleans sent me a packet of little things. I could never 
 open the parcel until the other day. Amongst the 
 treasures was a diamond ring, Rainsford, one I had seen 
 her wear when I was a little boy. I took it to a jeweller 
 on Market Street, and he told me it was worth a thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 Here Tony remained silent so long that his com- 
 panion said 
 
 " That's a lot of money, Tony." 
 
 "Well, it came to me," said the young man simply, 
 "like a gift from her. I asked them to lend me five 
 hundred dollars on it for a year. It seems that it's a 
 peculiarly fine stone, and they didn't hesitate." 
 
 Rainsford was smoking a peaceful pipe, and he held 
 182
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 183 
 
 the bowl affectionately in his hand, his attention fixed 
 on the blond young man sitting in the full light of the 
 evening. The night was warm, Fairfax was in snowy 
 shirt-sleeves, his bright hair cropped close revealed the 
 beautiful lines of his head; he was a powerful man, clean 
 in habits of body and mind, and his expression as he 
 talked was brilliant and fascinating, his eyes profound and 
 blue. Around his knees he clasped the hands that drove 
 an engine and ached to model in plaster and clay. His 
 big shoe was a deformity, otherwise he was superb. 
 
 "I've taken a studio, Rainsford," he smiled. "Tito 
 Falutini found it for me. It is a shed next to the lime- 
 kiln in Canal Street. I've got my material and I'm going 
 to begin my work for the California competition." 
 
 TJie older, to whom enthusiasm was as past a joy as 
 success was a dim possibility, said thoughtfully 
 
 " When will you work ? " 
 
 " Sundays, half-holidays and nights. God ! " he ex- 
 claimed in anticipation, holding out his strong arms, " it 
 seems too good to be true ! " 
 
 And Rainsford said, " I think I can contrive to get 
 Saturdays off for you. The Commodore is coming up next 
 week. He owes me a favour or two. I think I can make 
 it for you, old man." 
 
 There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called 
 " Molly ! " and she came in. She might have been a lady. 
 Long association with Fairfax and her love had taught 
 her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and brushed 
 until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined ; 
 her face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish 
 love sheds. 
 
 " It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and 
 placed a chair for her, "that Molly will be left entirely 
 alone."
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX 
 
 WHAT Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday 
 holidays was worth the weight of its hours in gold. This, 
 with Sundays, gave him two working days, and no lover 
 went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the 
 barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with 
 too mad enthusiasm, lacking the patience to wait until 
 his conceptions ripened. He roughly made his studies for 
 an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the figure in 
 the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he 
 was conscious that his hand had been idle, as far as 
 his art was concerned, too long; his fingers were blunted 
 and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed in 
 agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He 
 was too engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but 
 autumn came again with its wonderful haze, veiling death, 
 decay and destruction, and Fairfax found himself but 
 little more advanced than in May, when he had shut himself 
 in his studio, a happy man. 
 
 He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his 
 wife, for not the least of his unrest was caused by the 
 knowledge that he was selfish with her for the sake of his 
 art. By October he had destroyed a hundred little 
 figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a 
 clean sweep of six months' work and stood among the 
 ruins. He never in these moments thought of his wife 
 as a comforter, having never opened his heart to her 
 regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance 
 into his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic 
 infecundity. 
 
 On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, 
 turned the key and walked up Eagle Street toward the 
 church he had not entered since he was married. Led 
 
 184
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 185 
 
 by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar 
 in his old place he might find peace and possibly hear a 
 voice which would tell him as every creator must be 
 told HOW. He listened to the music and to the Litany, 
 the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan 
 appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent 
 and cold. To-day there were no visions around the altar 
 through whose high windows came the autumn glory 
 staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance wandered 
 to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew 
 were the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of 
 girls ; and he thought with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't 
 be little Bella Carew much longer, for she was nearly 
 sixteen, charming little Bella ! He thought of the statue 
 he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, 
 and 'with this came the feeling that everything he touched 
 had been warped and distorted. Ashamed of this point 
 of view, he sighed and rose with the others at the Creed. 
 He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, " Ees- 
 urrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon 
 " Everlasting Life " as though he would draw from the 
 expression such consolation as should make him belittle 
 the transient show with its mass of failures and unhappy 
 things, and render immortal only that in him which was 
 still aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead 
 of the curate a man with a red hood mount the pulpit 
 steps, and he knew it was the Canon himself. With a 
 new interest in his mind he sat erect. 
 
 For the first time since he had come to the North a 
 man whom he could revere and admire stood before him. 
 The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, his gracious voice, 
 his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made an 
 agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, 
 nearly shipwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to 
 him to speak to the Canon after service; but what should 
 he say? What appeal could he make? He was an 
 engineer married to a Eoman Catholic woman of the other 
 class, too poor a specimen of his own class to remain in 
 it. Since his marriage he had felt degraded in society, 
 out of place. If the Canon had advice to give him, it 
 would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his 
 wife.
 
 186 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the 
 others into the golden autumn day, and the music of the 
 organ rolled after him like a rich blessing. He waited 
 to let the line of schoolgirls pass him, and all of a sudden 
 as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, 
 an exclamation, and a call 
 
 " Cousin Antony! " 
 
 Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. 
 Not throwing herself against him in the old mad sweet- 
 ness of her impulsive nature, both pretty gloved hands 
 were held out to him and her upturned face lifted all 
 sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. " Oh, Cousin 
 Antony ! " 
 
 Both Fairfax's hands held hers. 
 
 " Quick ! " she cried, " before Miss Jackson comes out. 
 Where do you live? When will you come to see me? 
 But you can't come! We're not allowed to have gentle- 
 men callers! When can I come to see you? Dear 
 Cousin Antony, how glad I am ! " 
 
 " Bella ! " he murmured, and gazed at her. 
 
 The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and 
 diverted, passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the 
 last to appear from the church. 
 
 "Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll 
 write you. I've composed tons of letters, but I forgot the 
 number in Nut Street. Here's Miss Jackson, the horrid 
 thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony." 
 
 He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he 
 had told her. 
 
 Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and 
 were so absorbed in discussing the text of the sermon 
 that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew. 
 
 "I'm safe/' she cried, "the old cats! The girls will 
 never tell they're all too sweet. But I must go ; I'll just 
 say I've dropped my Prayer-book. There, you take it ! " 
 
 And she was gone. 
 
 Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella 
 ran after the others down the steps like an autumn leaf 
 blown by a light wind. She wore a brown dress down to 
 her boot tops (her boots too were brown with bows at 
 the tops) ; her little brown gloves had held his hand in 
 what had been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 187 
 
 She wore a brown hat with a plume in it that drooped 
 and dangled, and Antony had looked into her brown eyea 
 and seen their bright affection once more. 
 
 Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! 
 Not quite, though; no man ever knows what a woman 
 can be, will be, or ever is. He felt fifty years old as he 
 walked down the steps and turned towards Canal Street 
 to the door he had fastened four hours before on his 
 formless visions.
 
 CHAPTEE XXX 
 
 HE did not go home that day. 
 
 Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in 
 his hands, a pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer- 
 book on the table before him. ... In the wretched 
 afternoon he had read, one after another, the ser- 
 vices: Marriage . . . for better or for worse, till death do 
 us part. . . . The Baptismal service, and the Burial for 
 the Dead. 
 
 At six he rose with a sigh, and, though it was growing 
 dark, he began to draw aimlessly, and Eainsford, when he 
 came in, found Tony sketching, and the young man said 
 
 " You don't give a fellow much of your company these 
 days, Peter. Have a cigarette? I've smoked a whole 
 box myself." 
 
 " I'm glad to see you working, Fairfax." 
 
 "You don't know how glad I am," Fairfax exclaimed; 
 " but the light's bad." 
 
 Putting aside his drawing-board, he turned to his 
 friend, and, with an ardour such as he had not displayed 
 since the old days at the Delavan, began to tell of his 
 conception. 
 
 " I have given up my idea of a single figure. I shall 
 make a bas-relief, a great circular tablet, if you under- 
 stand, a wall with curving sides, and emblematic figures 
 in high relief. It will be a mighty fine piece of work, 
 Eainsford, if it's ever done." 
 
 " What will your figures be, Tony ? " 
 
 "Ah, they won't let me see their forms or faces yet." 
 He changed the subject. "What have you done with 
 your Sunday, old man ? Slept all day ? " 
 
 " No, I've been sitting for an hour or two with Mrs. 
 Fairfax." 
 
 188
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 189 
 
 Molly's husband murmured, "I'm a brute, and no 
 one knows it better than I do." 
 
 Eainsford made no refutation of his friend's accusation 
 of himself, but suggested 
 
 " She might bring her sewing in the afternoons, Tony ; 
 it would be less lonely for her ? " 
 
 Fairfax noticed the flush that rose along the agent's 
 thin cheek. 
 
 " By Jove ! " Fairfax reflected. " I wonder if old 
 Eainsford is in love with Molly ? " The supposition did 
 not make him jealous. 
 
 The two men went home together, and Eainsford 
 stayed to supper as he had taken a habit of doing, for 
 Fairfax did not wish to be alone. But when at ten 
 o'clock the guest had gone and the engineer and his wife 
 were 'alone together in their homely room, Fairfax said 
 
 " Don't judge me too harshly, Molly." 
 
 Judge him ? Did he think she did ? 
 
 " You might well, my dear." 
 
 He took the hand that did all the work for his life and 
 home and which she tried to keep as " ladylike " as she 
 knew, and said, his eyes full on her 
 
 " I do the best I can. I'm an artist, that's the truth 
 of it! There's something in me that's stronger than 
 anything else in the world. I reckon it's talent. I don't 
 know how good it is or how ignoble; but it's brutal, and 
 I've got to satisfy it, Molly." 
 
 Didn't she know it, didn't Mr. Eainsford tell her? 
 Didn't she want to leave him free? 
 
 " You're the best girl in the world ! " he cried con- 
 tritely, and checked the words, "You should never have 
 married me." 
 
 She couldn't see the struggle in him, but she could 
 observe how pale he was. She never caressed him. She 
 had long since learned that it was not what he wanted; 
 but she laid her hand on his head, for he was sitting on 
 the bed, and it might have been his mother who spoke 
 
 "You're clear tired out," she said gently. ^' Will I 
 fix up a bed for you in the kitchen to-night? You'll lie 
 better." 
 
 He accepted gratefully. To-morrow, being Monday, 
 was the longest day in the week for him.
 
 190 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He could not permit himself to go to church again, but 
 during the next few days he half expected to hear a knock 
 at the door which should announce Bella. But she did 
 not come, and he was glad that she did not, and more than 
 once, in the evening, he walked around the school building, 
 
 up Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house 
 
 where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the 
 schoolgirl, with her books and her companions. 
 
 "... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin 
 Antony . . ." 
 
 And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and 
 were swept and burned in fires whose incense was sweet to 
 him, and the trees in the school garden grew bare. 
 
 In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used 
 to meet him in those streets; now there seemed to be no 
 inspiration for him anywhere, and he wondered if it were 
 his marriage that had levelled all pinnacles for him or 
 his daily mechanical work? His associations with Tito 
 Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at 
 all, not equal to his dreams ! 
 
 In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he 
 called on the Images to return, and, half halting in his 
 walk, he looked up at one lighted window as if he expected 
 to see a girlish figure there and catch sight of a friendly 
 little hand that waved to him; but there was no such 
 greeting. 
 
 That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one 
 rose from the sofa, and his wife's voice called to him 
 
 "Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to 
 sit with you." 
 
 He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the 
 threshold of the workroom before, not having been in- 
 vited. She had brought her sewing. It was so lonely in 
 the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the 
 studio as well ? 
 
 Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his 
 pockets, Fairfax glanced at his wife as she took up the 
 little garments on which she was at work. Her skin was 
 stainless as a lily save here and there where the golden 
 fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair, 
 braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 191 
 
 There was a purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy 
 to him. He crossed over to her side and lit the lamp for 
 her. 
 
 "Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?" 
 
 " Nobody. I wanted to come, just/' 
 
 He threw himself down on the sofa near her. 
 " I can't work ! " he exclaimed. " I've not been able to 
 do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no good. I'm going 
 to let the whole thing go." 
 
 Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. 
 " Would you show me what you've been workin' at, 
 Tony?" 
 
 The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had 
 been a rapid pupil unconsciously taught, and her speech 
 had improved. 
 
 "I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hope- 
 lessly ; " but this is something of the new scheme I've 
 planned." 
 
 He went over to the other part of the studio and un- 
 covered the clay in which he had begun to work, and 
 mused before it. He took some clay from the barrel, 
 mixed it and began to model. Molly watched him. 
 
 " I get an idea," he murmured ; " but when I go to 
 fix it it escapes and eludes me. It has no form. I want 
 a group of figures in the foreground and the idea of distance 
 and far-away on the other side." 
 
 " It will be lovely, Tony," she encouraged him. " I 
 mind the day we walked in the cemetery for the first time 
 and you looked at the angel so long." 
 
 "Yes." He was kneeling, bending forward, putting 
 the clay on with his thumb. 
 
 " Ever since then " Molly's tone was meditative 
 " that angel seems like a friend to me. Many's the time 
 when there's a hard thing to do he seems to open the door 
 and I go through, and it's not so hard." 
 
 She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was 
 superstitious, like the people of her country. The things 
 she said were often full of fancy, like the legends and 
 stories of the Celts ; but now he hardly heard her, for he 
 was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, 
 and, under the quiet of her presence and its companion- 
 ship, his modelling grew. He heard her finally stir, and
 
 192 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 the clock struck seven, and they had had no supper. 
 Until she crossed the floor, he did not speak. Then he 
 turned 
 
 " I'll work on a little longer. I want to finish this 
 hand." 
 
 " Take your time, Tony. I'll be going home slowly, 
 anyway." 
 
 She was at the door, stood in it, held it half-open, her 
 arm out along the panel looking back at him. Her figure 
 was in the shadow, but the light fell on her face, on her 
 hair and on her hand. The unconscious charm of her 
 pose, her slow pause, her attitude of farewell and waiting, 
 the solemnity of it, the effect of light and shadow, struck 
 Fairfax. 
 
 " Molly," he cried, "wait!" 
 
 But she had dropped her arm. "You'll be coming 
 along," she said, smiling, " and it's getting late." 
 
 He found that the spell for work was broken after she 
 left, though a fleeting idea, a picture, an image he could 
 not fix, tantalized him. He followed his wife. He had 
 passed the most peaceful hour in his Canal Street studio 
 since he had signed the lease with the money of his mother's 
 ring. He would have told Molly this, but Rainsford was 
 there for supper.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 MOLLY came and sat with him Saturday afternoons and 
 Sundays. Fairfax made studies of his wife as she sewed, 
 a modern conception of a woman sitting under a lamp, 
 her face lifted, dreaming. He told Rainsford that when 
 the lease was up he should vacate the studio, for he could 
 not go on with his scheme for the monument. He had 
 the memories of Molly's coming to him during the late 
 autumn and winter afternoons. The remembrance 'of 
 these holidays soothed and pardoned many faults and 
 delinquencies. She seemed another Molly to the Sheedy 
 counter girl, the Troy collar factory girl, and an indefinable 
 Presence came with her, lingered as she sewed or read 
 some book she had picked up, and if Fairfax the artist 
 watched the change and transformation of her face as it 
 refined and thinned, grew more delicate and meditative, 
 it was Fairfax the man who recalled the picture afterward. 
 
 She was exceedingly gentle, very silent, ready with 
 a word of encouragement and admiration if he spoke to 
 her. She knew nothing of the art he adored, but seemed 
 to know his temperament and to understand. She posed 
 tranquilly while the short days met the early nights; she 
 disguised her fatigue and her ennui, so that he never knew 
 she grew tired, and the Presence surrounded her like an 
 envelope, until Antony, drawing and modelling, wondered 
 if it were not the soul of the child about to be born to 
 him, and if from the new emotion his inspiration would 
 not stir and bless him at the last? 
 
 What there was of humour and fantasy in her Irish 
 heart, how imaginative and tender she was, he might have 
 gathered in those hours, if he had chosen to talk with her 
 and make her his companion. But he was reserved, 
 mentally and spiritually, and he kept the depths of himself 
 
 103
 
 194 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 down, nor could he reveal his soul which from boyhood 
 he had dreamed to give to One Woman with his whole 
 being. He felt himself condemned to silence and only 
 partially to develop, and no one but Molly Fairfax, with 
 her humility and her admiration, could have kept him from 
 unholy dreams and unfaithfulness. 
 
 His life on the engine was hard in the winter. He felt 
 the cold intensely, and as his art steadily advanced, his 
 daily labour in the yards grew hateful, and he pushed the 
 days of the week through till Sunday should come and he 
 be free. His face was set and white when Rainsford 
 informed him that it would be impossible to give him 
 " Saturdays off " any longer. Antony turned on his heel 
 and left the office without response to his chief, and thought 
 as he strode back to his tenement : " It's Peter's personal 
 feeling. He's in love with Molly, and those days in the 
 studio gall him." 
 
 Molly, who was lying down when he came in, brushed 
 her hand across her eyes as if to brush away whatever was 
 there before he came. She took his hat and coat; his 
 slippers and warm jacket were before the stove. 
 
 " Rainsford has knocked me off my Saturdays," he said 
 bitterly. 
 
 She stopped at the hook, the things in her hand. 
 " That's hard on you, Tony, and you getting on so well 
 with your work." 
 
 She didn't say that she could not have gone on any 
 more . . . that the walk she took the week before to Canal 
 Street had been her last; but Fairfax, observing her, 
 rendered keen by his own disappointment, understood. He 
 called her to him, made her sit down on the sofa beside him. 
 
 " Peter has been better to you than I have," he said 
 sadly. " I've tired you out, my dear, and I've been a 
 selfish brute to you." 
 
 He saw that his words gave her pain, and desisted. 
 He was going to be nothing more from henceforth but an 
 engineer. He would shut the studio and take her out on 
 Sundays. She received his decision meekly, without 
 rebuffing it, and he said 
 
 "Molly, if I had not come along, I reckon you would 
 have married Peter Rainsford. There! Don't look like 
 that ! "
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 195 
 
 " Tony," she replied, " I'd rather be wretched with you 
 if I were, and I'm not, dear. I'd rather be unhappy 
 along of you than the happiest queen." 
 
 He kissed her hand with a gallantry new to her and 
 which made her crimson, and half laugh and half cry. 
 
 She went early to bed, and Antony, alone in the kitchen, 
 raked down the coals, covered the fire in the stove, heard 
 the clock tick and the whistles of the boat on the river. 
 In the silence of the winter night, as it fell around him, he 
 thought : " I reckon I'll have to try to make her happy, 
 even if I cut out my miserable talent and kill it." And as 
 he straightened himself he felt the Presence there. The 
 solemn Presence that had come with her to his workshop 
 and kept him company, and it was so impressive that he 
 passe/1- his hand across his forehead as though dazed, and 
 opened the door of his bedroom to see her and be assured. 
 She was already asleep; by her side, the little basket 
 prepared, waited for the life to come. He stepped in 
 softly, and his heart melted. He knelt down and buried 
 his face in the pillow by her side, and without waking she 
 turned her face toward him in her sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 HE did not go to the studio for a month, but though he 
 remained with her the poor girl profited little by his 
 company. He smoked countless cigarettes, in spite of 
 the fact that he had doctor's bills to look forward to. 
 In the long winter evenings he read books that he fetched 
 from the library while the blizzards and storms swept 
 round the window, and the next day his duties stared him 
 in the face. He dreamed before the stove, his cigarette 
 between his fingers, and Molly watched him; but Rains- 
 ford, when he came, did not find her any more alone. 
 
 Finally, in the last Sunday of January, after the noon 
 dinner, she fetched him his coat and muffler. 
 
 " I can't let you stay home any more like this, Tony," 
 she told him. " Take your things and go to the studio ; 
 I'm sure you're dying to, and don't hurry back. I'm 
 feeling fine." 
 
 He caught her suggestion with an eagerness that made 
 her bite her lip ; she kept her face from him lest he should 
 see her disappointment. He exclaimed joyously 
 
 "Why, I reckon you're right, Molly. I will go for 
 awhile. I'll work all the better for the holiday." 
 
 He might have said " sacrifice." 
 
 As he got into his things he asked her : " You're sure 
 you'll not need anything, Molly? You think it's all right 
 for me to go ? " 
 
 She assured him she would rest and sleep, and that 
 the woman " below stairs " would come up if she wanted 
 anything. He mustn't hurry. 
 
 He took the studio key. He was gone, his uneven step 
 echoed on the narrow stairs. She listened till it died away. 
 
 Fairfax before his panel during the afternoon worked 
 as though Fate were at his heels. When he came in the 
 room was bitter cold, and it took the big fire he built long 
 
 196
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 197 
 
 to make the shed inhabitable; but no sooner had the 
 chill left the air, and he unwrapped his plaster, than a 
 score of ideas came beating upon him like emancipated 
 ghosts and shades, and he saw the forms, though the faces 
 were still veiled. He sang and whistled, he declaimed 
 aloud as the clay he mixed softened and rolled under his 
 fingers. ... It let him shape it, its magic was under his 
 thumb, its plasticity, its reponse fascinated the sculptor. 
 He tried now with the intensity of his being to fix his 
 conception for the gate of Death and Eternal Life. He 
 had already made his drawing for the new scaffolding, 
 and it would take him two Sundays to build it up. 
 Falutini would help him. 
 
 It seemed strange to work without Molly sitting in 
 her corner. He wondered how long the daylight would 
 last; he had three months still until spring; that meant 
 twelve Sundays. He thought of Molly's approaching 
 illness, and a shadow crossed his face. Why had he come 
 back only to tempt and tantalize himself with freedom 
 and the joy of creation ? 
 
 Sunday-Albany outside was as tranquil as the tomb, 
 and scarcely a footstep passed under his window. The 
 snow lay light upon the window-ledge and the roof, and 
 as the room grew warmer the cordial light fell upon him 
 as he worked, and a sense of the right to labour, the right 
 to be free, made him take heart and inspired his hand. 
 He began the sketch of his group on a large scale. 
 
 As he bent over his board the snow without shifted 
 rustling from the roof, and the slipping, feathery shower 
 fell gleaming before his window; the sound made him 
 glance up and back towards the door. As he did so he 
 recalled, with the artist's vivid vision, the form of his 
 wife, as she had stood in the opened door, her arm along 
 the panel, in the attitude of waiting and parting. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he murmured, gazing as though it were 
 reality. Half wondering, but with assurance, he indicated 
 what he recalled, and was drawing in rapidly, absorbed 
 in his idea, when some one struck the door harshly from 
 without, and Rainsford called him. 
 
 Fairfax started, threw down his pencil, and seized his hat 
 and muffler he worked in his overcoat because he was cold 
 to follow the man who had come to fetch him in haste.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 OVER and over again that night in his watch that lasted 
 until dawn, as he walked the floor of his little parlour- 
 kitchen and listened, as he stood in the window before 
 the soundless winter night and listened, Fairfax said the 
 word he had said to her when she had paused in the 
 doorway 
 
 "Wait . . A" 
 
 For what should she wait? 
 
 Did he want her to wait until he had caught the image 
 of her on his mind and brain that he might call upon it 
 for his inspiration ? 
 
 He called her to "wait!" 
 
 Until he should become a great master and need her 
 with her simplicity and her humble mind less than ever? 
 Until he should be honoured by his kind and crowned 
 successful and come at last into his own, and she be the 
 only shadow on his glory? Not for that! 
 
 Until Fairfax one day should need the warmth of a 
 perfectly unselfish woman's heart, a self-effacing tender- 
 ness, a breast to lean upon? She had given him all this. 
 
 He smelled the ether and strange drugs. The doctor 
 came and went. The nurse he had engaged from the 
 hospital, " the woman from below stairs " as well, came 
 and went, spoke to him and shut him out. 
 
 He was conscious that in a chair in a corner, in a 
 desperate position, his head in his hands, Rainsford was 
 sitting. Of these things he was conscious afterward, but 
 he felt now that he only listened, his every emotion con- 
 centrated in the sense of hearing. What was it he was 
 BO intent to hear? The passing of the Irrevocable or the 
 advent of a new life? He stood at length close to her 
 door, and it was nearly morning. A clock somewhere 
 
 198
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 199 
 
 struck four presently, and the whistle of the Limited blew; 
 but those were not the sounds he waited to hear. 
 
 At five o'clock, whilst it was still dark in the winter 
 morning, he started, his heart thumping against his 
 breast, a sob in his throat. Out of the stillness which to 
 him had been unbroken, came a cry, then another, 
 terribly sweet and heart-touching the cry of life. He 
 opened the door of his wife's room and entered softly in 
 his stocking feet. There seemed to be a multitude 
 between him and his wife and child. He did not dare 
 to approach, but stood leaning against the wall, cold with 
 apprehension and stirred to his depths. He seemed to 
 stand there for a lifetime, and his knees nearly gave way 
 beneath him. His hand pressed against his cheek. He 
 leane^l forward. 
 
 "Wait!" 
 
 He almost murmured the word that came to his lips. 
 
 For what should Molly Fairfax wait? Life had given 
 her a state too high. She had brought much grace to it 
 and much love. She had given a great deal. To wait 
 for return, for such gifts, was to wait for the unattainable. 
 
 She went through the open door that she saw open, 
 perhaps not all unwillingly; and she was not alone, for 
 the child went with her, and they came to Fairfax and 
 told him that she had gone through gently murmuring 
 his name.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 As Nut Street, with the destruction of his little statue, 
 had been wiped out of his history, so the two rooms 
 overlooking the river and steamboats knew Antony Fair- 
 fax no more. He turned the key in the door the day they 
 carried away the body of his wife, and when he came back 
 from the snowy earth and the snowy white city where he 
 left her with his hour-old child, he went to the Delavan 
 House as he had done before, and buried his head in his 
 arms on his lowly bed in a hotel room and wept. 
 
 The following day he sent word to Eainsford to look 
 out for another engineer in his place. He had driven his 
 last trip. 
 
 Tito Falutini wrung his friend's hand, and told 
 Fairfax, in his broken Italian-English, that he knew a 
 fellow would take the rooms as they stood. "Would 
 Tony give the job to him ? " Save for his clothes and 
 Molly's things, and they were few, he took nothing, not 
 even the drawings decorating the wall on which other 
 Irish eyes should look with admiration. 
 
 He interviewed the jewellers again. They gave him 
 four hundred dollars and took his mother's ring. He 
 paid his doctor's bills and funeral expenses, and had fifty 
 dollars left until he should finish his bas-relief. He went 
 to live at the Canal Street studio and shut himself up with 
 his visions, his freedom, his strange reproach and his sense 
 of untrammelled wings. 
 
 He worked with impassioned fervour, for now he 
 knew. He modelled with assurance, for now he saw. 
 His hands were so eager to create the idea of his brain that 
 he sighed as he worked, fairly panted at his task as though 
 he ran a race with inspiration. Half-fed, sometimes quite 
 sleepless, he lost weight and flesh. He missed the open-air 
 
 200
 
 201 
 
 life of the engine and the air at his ears. But now at his 
 ears were the audible voices of his conceptions. February 
 and March passed. His models were, a mannequin, his 
 studies of Molly Fairfax, and once the daughter of the 
 man who rented him the workshop stood before him 
 draped in the long garment; but he sent her away: she 
 was too living for his use. He ate in little cheap res- 
 taurants down by the riverside, or cooked himself coffee 
 and eggs over his lamp, and wondered who would be the 
 first to break the silence and isolation, for it was six weeks 
 before he saw a single human being save those he passed 
 in the street. 
 
 "Kainsford," he said to the agent, who on the last 
 day of March came slowly in at noon, walking like a man 
 just out of a long illness, " I reckoned you'd be along when 
 you were ready. I've waited for you here." 
 
 Fairfax's hand was listlessly touched by his friend's, 
 then Kainsford went over and took Molly's place by the 
 lamp. Fairfax checked the words, " Not there, for God's 
 sake, Eainsf ord ! " He thought, " Let the living come. 
 Nothing can brush away the image of her sitting there in 
 the lamplight, no matter how many fill the place." 
 
 Eainsford's eyes were hollow, and his tone as pale as 
 his face, whose sunken cheeks and hollows, to Fairfax, 
 marked the progress of a fatal disease. His voice sounded 
 hoarse and strained; he spoke with effort. 
 
 " I've come to say good-bye. I've given up my job 
 here in West Albany. I'm going to try another country, 
 Tony." 
 
 The sculptor sat down on the lounge where he had used 
 to sit near his wife, and said solicitously 
 
 " I see you're not well, old man. I don't wonder you're 
 going to try a better climate. I hope to heaven I shall 
 never see another snow-flake fall. I assure you I feel them 
 fall on graves." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. The agent passed his 
 hand across his face and said, as if reluctant to speak 
 at all - 
 
 "Yes, I am going to try another country. He 
 glanced at Fairfax and coughed. 
 
 "California?" questioned Antony. "I hope you'll^ get 
 a job in some such paradise. Do you think you will ? "
 
 202 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 The other man did not reply. He looked about the 
 studio, now living-room and workshop, and said 
 
 " I should like to see what you have been doing. 
 Fairfax. How are you getting on ? " 
 
 Tony, however, did not rise from the sofa nor show 
 any inclination to comply, and his friend irrelevantly, as 
 though he took up the young man's problems where he 
 had left them, before his own sentiment for Molly had 
 estranged him from her husband 
 
 "You must be pretty hard up by now, Tony." He 
 drew from his waistcoat pocket his wallet, and took out 
 a roll of bills which he folded mechanically and held in 
 his transparent hand. " Ever since the day you came in 
 to take your orders from me in West Albany, I've wanted 
 to help you. Now I've got the money to do so, old 
 man." 
 
 " No, my kind friend." 
 
 "Don't refuse me then, if I am that." The other's 
 lip twitched. "Take it, Tony." 
 
 "You mustn't ask me to, Peter." 
 
 " I made a turnover last week in N. Y. U. I can 
 afford it. I ask you for the sake of old times." 
 
 Fairfax covered the slender hand with his. He shook 
 it warmly. 
 
 " I'm sorry, old man. I can't do it." 
 
 The near-sighted eyes of the paymaster met those of 
 Fairfax with a melancholy appeal, and the other responded 
 to his unspoken words 
 
 " No, Rainsford, not for anything in the world." 
 
 " It's your Pride," Rainsford murmured, and he put 
 on his shining glasses and looked through them fully at 
 Fairfax. " It's your Pride, Tony. What are you going 
 to do?" 
 
 For answer, Fairfax rose, stretched out his arms, 
 walked toward his covered bas-relief and drew away the 
 curtain. 
 
 His friend followed him, stood by his side, and, with 
 his thin hand covering his eyes, looked without speaking 
 at the bas-relief. When he finally removed his hand and 
 turned, Fairfax saw that his friend's face was transformed. 
 Rainsford wore a strangely peaceful look, even an up- 
 lifted expression, such as a traveller might wear who sees
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 203 
 
 the door open to a friendly shelter and foretastes his 
 repose. 
 
 Rainsford held out his hand. "Thank you, Tony," 
 and his voice was clear. " You're a great artist." 
 
 When he had gone, Fairfax recalled his rapt expression, 
 and thought, sadly, " I'm afraid he's a doomed man, dear 
 old Rainsford! Poor old Peter, I doubt if any climate 
 can save him now." And went heavy-hearted to prepare 
 his little luncheon of sandwiches and milk.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 FAIRFAX had finished his lunch and was preparing to work 
 again when, in answer to a knock, he opened the door for 
 Tito Falutini, who bore in in his Sunday clothes, behind 
 him a rosy, smiling, embarrassed lady, whom Fairfax had 
 not seen for a " weary while." 
 
 "Mrs. Falutini," grinned his fireman. "I married! 
 Shakka de han." 
 
 " Cora ! " exclaimed Fairfax, kissing the bride on both 
 her cheeks ; " I would have come to see your mother and 
 you long ago, but I couldn't." 
 
 " Share," said the Irish girl tenderly, her eyes full of 
 tears. " I know, Mr. Fairfax, dear, and so does the all 
 of us." 
 
 He realized more and more how well these simple 
 people knew and how kindly is the heart of the poor, and 
 he wondered if " Blessed are the poor in spirit " that the 
 Canon had spoken of in church on Sunday did not refer 
 to some peculiar kind of richness of which the millionaires 
 of the world are ignorant. He made Falutini and his 
 bride welcome, and Cora's brogue and her sympathy 
 caused his grief to freshen. But their boisterous happi- 
 ness and their own content was stronger than all else, and 
 when at last Cora said, " Och, show us the statywary 't 
 you're makin', Misther Fairfax, dear," he languidly rose 
 and uncovered again his bas-relief. Then he watched 
 curiously the Irish girl and the Italian workman before 
 his labour. 
 
 " Shure," Cora murmured, her eyes full of tears, " it's 
 Molly herself, Mr. Fairfax, dear. It's living." 
 
 He let the covering fall, and its folds suggested the 
 garments of the tomb. 
 
 The young couple, starting out in life arm-in-arm, had 
 204
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 205 
 
 seen only life in his production, and he was glad. He let 
 them go without reluctance, eager to return to his 
 modelling, and to retouch a line in the woman's figure, 
 for the bas-relief was still warm clay, and had not been 
 cast in plaster, and he kept at his work until five o'clock 
 in the afternoon, when there was another knock at his 
 door. He bade the intruder absently " Come in," heard 
 the door softly open and close, and the sound jarred his 
 nerves, as did every sound at that door, and with his 
 scalpel in his hand, turned sharply. In the door close to 
 his shadow stood the figure of a slender young girl. 
 There was only the space of the room between them, and 
 even in his surprise he thought, "Now, there is nothing 
 else ! " 
 
 " Cousin Antony," she said from the doorway where 
 he had seen the vision, " aren't you going to speak to 
 me ? Aren't you glad to see me ? " 
 
 Her words were the first Fairfax had heard in the rich 
 voice of a woman, for the child tone had changed, and there 
 was a " timbre " now in the tone that struck the old and 
 a new thrill. Her boldness, the bright assurance seemed 
 gone. He thought her voice trembled. 
 
 "Why don't you speak to me, Cousin Antony? Do 
 you think I'm a ghost?" 
 
 (A ghost!) 
 
 Bella came forward as she spoke, and he saw that she 
 wore a girlish dress, a long dress, a womanly dress. With 
 her old affectionate gesture she held out her hand, and 
 on her dark hair was a little red bonnet of some fashion 
 too modish for him to find familiar, but very bewitching 
 and becoming, and he saw that she was a lovely woman, 
 nearly seventeen. 
 
 " I lost the precious little paper you gave me, 
 Cousin Antony, that day at church, and I only found 
 it to-day in packing. I'm going home for the Easter 
 holidays." 
 
 He realized that she was close to him, and that she 
 innocently lifted up her face. Fairfax bent and kissed 
 her under the red hat on the hair. 
 
 " Now," she cried, nodding at him, " I've hunted you 
 down, tracked you to your lair, and you can't escape. I 
 want to see your work. Show me everything."
 
 206 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 But Fairfax put his hand up quickly, and before 
 her eyea rested on the bas-relief he had let the curtain 
 fall. 
 
 "You're not an engineer any more, then, Cousin 
 Antony?" 
 
 " No, Bella." 
 
 " Tell me why you ran away from us as you did ? 
 Oh ! " she exclaimed, clasping her pretty hands, " I've 
 thought over and over the questions I wanted to ask you, 
 things 1 wanted to tell you, and now I forget them all. 
 Cousin Antony, it wasn't kind to leave us as you did, 
 Gardiner and me." 
 
 He watched her as she took a chair, half-leaning on 
 its back before his covered work. Bella's pose was grace- 
 ful and elegant. Girl as she was, she was a little woman 
 of the world. She swung her gloves between her fingers, 
 looking up at him. 
 
 " It's nearly five years, Cousin Antony." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 She laughed and blushed. " I've been running after 
 you, shockingly, haven't I? I ran away from home and 
 found you in the queer little street in the queer little home 
 with those angel Irish people! How are they all, Cousin 
 Antony, and the freckled children ? " 
 
 "Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly 
 finished with you in school? You are grown up." 
 
 She shook her head vehemently. " Nonsense, I'm a 
 dreadful hoyden still. Think of it! I've never been on 
 the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's." 
 
 " No ? " he smiled. " They were wrong not to put you 
 there. How is Aunt Caroline ? " 
 
 The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her 
 breath 
 
 " Why, don't you know?" 
 
 Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella 
 mean? 
 
 She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her 
 hands gravely 
 
 "Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the 
 papers ? " 
 
 He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't 
 death, then? He hadn't seen any papers for some time,
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 207 
 
 and he never should have expected to find his aunt's name 
 in the papers. 
 
 " I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony." 
 
 He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you 
 can, little cousin/' 
 
 Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that 
 was what you used to call me, didn't you? You see, 
 I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a thing a girl 
 should know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?" 
 
 " Hardly, Bella." 
 
 Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the 
 dry morsels of clay fell to the floor. 
 
 " Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline." 
 
 " She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor 
 father's wife either." 
 
 He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed. 
 
 " I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, 
 Cousin Antony." 
 
 " She had indeed, Bella." 
 
 " Well," slowly commented the young girl, " ghe took 
 music lessons from a teacher who sang in the opera, and 
 I used, to hear them at it until I nearly lost my mind 
 sometimes. I hate music I mean that kind, Cousin 
 Antony." 
 
 " Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the denoue- 
 ment. " What then, honey ? " 
 
 " One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home ; 
 but she is often late, and we waited, and then went on 
 without her. . . . She never came home, and no one ever 
 told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I was 
 not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, 
 until now, to you." 
 
 Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little 
 rolled kid gloves ; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. 
 Young as she was, she saw there and recognized compassion 
 and human understanding, qualities which, although she 
 hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He 
 bent his eyes on her. 
 
 "Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your 
 mother's name in the right place. Don't judge her, 
 Bella ! " 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She
 
 208 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 tossed her proud, dark head. " I do judge her, Cousin 
 Antony, I do." 
 
 " Hush ! " he exclaimed sternly, " as you say, you 
 are too young to understand what she has done, but not 
 too young to be merciful." 
 
 She snatched her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes 
 rebellious. 
 
 " Why should I not judge her ? " Her voice was 
 indignant. "It's a disgrace to my honourable father, 
 to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony ? " Fairfax 
 did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. " She 
 was never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with 
 the cruelty of youth. " Think how I ran wild ! Do you 
 remember my awful clothes? My things that never met, 
 the buttons off my shoes? Think of darling little 
 Gardiner, Cousin Antony . . . ! " 
 
 Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped 
 her foot passionately. 
 
 " But I will speak ! Why should you take her part ? " 
 
 With an expression which Bella felt to be grave, 
 Fairfax repeated 
 
 "You must not speak her name, as your father told 
 you. It's a mighty hard thing for one woman to judge 
 another, little cousin. Wait until you are a woman 
 yourself." 
 
 Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had 
 opened to his weak, sentimental aunt; he fancied that 
 he saw again the doe at the gate of the imposing park of 
 the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and, her 
 eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic 
 world. To him this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh ! 
 mysterious, dreadful, wonderful heart of woman ! 
 
 Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. " Cousin 
 Antony," she breathed, " why do you take her part ? " 
 
 " I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing." 
 
 Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His 
 throat was bare, his blond hair cut close around his neck; 
 the marks of his recent grief and struggle had thinned and 
 saddened his face. He had altered very much in five 
 years. 
 
 " I remember," Bella said sharply, " you used to seem 
 fond of her ; " and added, " I loved my father best."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 209 
 
 Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across 
 the studio, and started to sit down under the green lamp. 
 
 " No," cried Fairfax, " not there, Bella ! " 
 
 Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl 
 paused in surprise. 
 
 " Why, why not, Cousin Antony ? " 
 
 Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford 
 from sitting there. 
 
 " Is the chair weak in its legs ? " she laughed. " I'm 
 light I'll risk it," and, half defiantly, she seated her- 
 self by the table, leaning both elbows on it. She looked 
 back at him. " Now, make a little drawing of me as you 
 used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove 
 what a genius we have in the family; and I must go 
 back, too, or I'll have more bad marks than ever." 
 
 Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her 
 as though he saw through her to eternity. 
 
 Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. 
 " Cousin Antony," she murmured, " I'm perfectly dread- 
 Iful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. Ifs only because 
 I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me 
 nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You 
 wear a black cravat and your clothes are black. Is it 
 for Aunt Arabella still ? " 
 
 Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a 
 height. Her brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far 
 away. His heart ached within him. 
 
 " One goes mighty far in five years, Bella. . . . One 
 loses many things." 
 
 " I know Gardiner and your mother. But who 
 else?" 
 
 He saw her face sadden; the young girl extended her 
 hand to him, her eyes darkened. 
 
 " Who else ? " she breathed. 
 
 Fairfax put out his arms toward her, but did not 
 enfold her. He let his hands rest on her shoulders and 
 murmured, "Bella, little Bella," and choked the other 
 words back. 
 
 "No," she said, "I'm not little Bella any more. 
 Please answer me, Cousin Antony." 
 
 He could not have told her for his life. He could tell 
 her nothing ; her charm, her lifted face, beautiful, ardent,
 
 210 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 were the most real, the most vital things the world had 
 ever held for him. The fascination found him under his 
 new grief. He exclaimed, turning brusquely toward his 
 covered scaffolding 
 
 "Don't you want to see my work, Bella? I've been 
 at it nearly a year." 
 
 He rapidly drew the curtain and exposed his Das- 
 relief. 
 
 There was in the distance a vague indication of distant 
 sky-line a far horizon upon which, into which, a door 
 opened, held ajar by a woman's arm and hand. The 
 woman's figure, draped in the clinging garment of the 
 grave, was passing through, but in going her face was 
 turned, uplifted, to look back at a man without, who, 
 apparently unconscious of her, gazed upon life and the 
 world. That was all the two figures and the feeling of 
 the vast illimitable far-away. 
 
 It seemed to Fairfax as he unveiled his work that he 
 looked upon it himself for the first time; it seemed to 
 him finished, moreover, complete. He knew that he 
 could do nothing more with it. He heard Bella ask, 
 " Who is it, Cousin Antony ? It is perfectly beautiful ! " 
 her old enthusiasm soft and warm in her voice. 
 
 At her repeated question, "Who is it?" he replied, 
 " A dream woman." And his cousin said, " You have 
 lovely dreams, but it is too sad." 
 
 He told her for what it was destined, and she listened, 
 musing, and when she turned her face to him again there 
 were tears in her eyes. She pointed to the panel. 
 
 "There should be a child there," she said, with 
 trembling lips. " They go in too, Cousin Antony." 
 
 " Yes," he responded, " they go in too." 
 
 He crossed the floor with her toward the door, neither 
 of them speaking. She drew on her gloves, but at the 
 door he said 
 
 " Stop a moment. I'm going a little way with you." 
 
 "No, Cousin Antony, you can't. Myra Scutfield, my 
 best friend, is waiting for me with her brother. I'm 
 supposed to be visiting her for Sunday. You mustn't 
 come." 
 
 Her hand was on the door latch. He gently took her 
 hand and pushed it aside. He did not wish her to open
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 211 
 
 that door or to go through it alone. As they stood there 
 silent, she lifted her face and said 
 
 "I'm going away for the Easter holidays. Kiss me 
 good-bye/' 
 
 And he stooped and kissed her kissed Bella, the little 
 cousin, the honey child no, kissed Bella, the woman, 
 on her lips.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXVI 
 
 FROM the window he watched her fly up the street like 
 a scarlet bird, and realized what a child she was still, and, 
 whereas he had felt a hundred that day at church, he 
 now felt as old as the ancient Egyptians, as the Sphinx, 
 a Sage in suffering and knowledge of life, beside his cousin. 
 He called her little, but she was tall and slender, standing 
 as high as his shoulder. 
 
 He turned heavily about to his room which the night 
 now filled. The street lamps were lit, and their frail 
 glimmer flickered in, like the fingers of a ghost. His 
 money was nearly gone. There was the expense of 
 casting his work in plaster, the packing and shipping of 
 the bas-relief. He lit his lamp, and, as he adjusted the 
 green shade, under which Molly had used to sit and sew, 
 he saw on the table the roll of bills which Eainsford had 
 offered to him that morning. He picked up the money 
 with a smile. 
 
 " Poor old Rainsford, dear old chap. He was deter- 
 mined, wasn't he?" 
 
 Fairfax wrapped up the heavy roll of money, marked 
 it with Rainsford's name, and stood musing on his 
 friend's failing health, his passion for Molly, and the 
 fruitless, vanishing story that ended, as all seemed to end 
 for him, in death. Suddenly, over his intense feelings, 
 came the need of nourishment, and he wanted to escape 
 from the room where he had been caged all day. 
 
 At the Delavan, George Washington welcomed him 
 with delight. 
 
 " Yo' dun f orgit yo' ol' friends, Massa' Kunnell Fairfax, 
 sah. Yo doan favour dis ol' nigger any moh." 
 
 Fairfax told him that he was an expensive luxury, and 
 enjoyed his quiet meal and his cigar, took a walk in a 
 
 212
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 213 
 
 different direction from Canal Street, and at ten o'clock 
 returned to find a boy waiting at the door with a note, 
 whistling and staring up and down the street, waiting for 
 the gentleman to whom he was to deliver his note in 
 person. 
 
 Fairfax went in with his letter, knowing before he 
 opened it that Rainsford had something grave to tell him. 
 He sat down in Molly's chair, around which the Presence 
 had gathered and brooded until the young man's soul had 
 seemed engulfed in the shadow of Death. 
 
 " MY DEAR TONY, 
 
 "When you read this letter, it will be of no 
 use to come to me. Don't come. I said my final word 
 to you to-day when I went to make my will and testament. 
 You will discover on your table all my fortune. It counts 
 up to a thousand dollars. I have a feeling that it may 
 help you to success. You know what a failure I have 
 been. I should have been one right along. Now that I 
 have found out that a mortal disease is upon me, my last 
 spurt of courage is gone. When I stood before your work 
 to-day, Tony, it was a benediction to me. Although I 
 had fully decided to go out, I should have gone hope- 
 lessly ; now there is something grand to me in the retreat. 
 The uplift and the solemnity of the far horizon charm me, 
 and though I open the door for myself and have no right to 
 any claim for mercy, nevertheless I think that I shall find 
 it there, and I am going through the open door. God 
 bless you, Fairfax. Don't let the incidents of your life 
 in Albany cloud what I believe will be a great career. 
 
 " THOMAS RAINSFORD."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 HE was too young to be engulfed by death. 
 
 But he did not think or understand then that the 
 great events which had racked his nerves in suffering were 
 only incidents. Nor did he know that neither his soul 
 nor his heart had suffered all they were capable of enduring. 
 In spite of his deep heart-ache and his feelings that 
 quivered with the memories of his wife, he was above all 
 an artist, a creator. Hope sprang from this last grave. 
 Desire in Fairfax had never been fully born; how then 
 could it be fully satisfied or grow old and cold before it 
 had lived! 
 
 Tony Fairfax was the sole mourner that followed 
 Rainsford's coffin to the Potter's Field. They would not 
 bury him in consecrated ground. Canon Prynne had been 
 surprised by a visit at eight o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Fairfax was received by the Bishop in his bedroom, 
 where the Bishop was shaving. Fairfax, as he talked, 
 caught sight of his own face in the glass, deathly white, 
 his burning eyes as blue as the heavens to which he was 
 sure Rainsford had gone. 
 
 " My friend/' the ecclesiastic said, " my friend, I have 
 nothing to do with laws, thank God. I am glad that no 
 responsibility has been given me but to do my work. 
 But let me say, to comfort you, is not every whit of the 
 earth that God made holy? What could make it more 
 sacred than the fact that He created it ? " 
 
 Fairfax thought of these words as he saw the dust 
 scatter and heard the rattle of the stones on the lid of 
 Rainsford's coffin, and in a clear and assured voice of one 
 who knows in whom he has believed, he read from Bella's 
 Prayer-book (he had never given it back to her), "I am 
 
 214
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 215 
 
 the Resurrection and the Life." He could find no parson 
 to go with him. 
 
 On the way back to Albany he met the spring every- 
 where; it was just before the Easter holidays. Overhead 
 the clouds rolled across a stainless sky, and they took 
 ship-like forms to him and he felt a strong wish to escape 
 to depart. Rainsford had set him free. It would be 
 months before he could hear from his competition. There 
 was nothing in this continent to keep him. He had come 
 North full of living hope and vital purpose, and meekly, 
 solemnly, his graves had laid themselves out around him, 
 and he alone stood living. 
 
 Was there nothing to keep him? 
 
 Bella Carew. 
 
 He, had, of all people in the world, possibly the leatt 
 right to her. She was his first cousin, nothing but a 
 child; worth, the papers had said, a million in her own 
 right. The heiress of a man who despised him. 
 
 But her name was music still ; music as yet too 
 delicate, sweet as it was, not to be drowned by the deeper, 
 graver notes that were sounding through Fairfax. There 
 was a call to labour, there was the imperious demand of 
 his art. In him, something sang Glory, and if the other 
 tones meant struggle and battle, nevertheless his desire 
 was all toward them.
 
 BOOK III 
 
 THE VISIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind 
 him, every lovely ripple washing the shores of a new 
 continent. 
 
 The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight 
 were the Norman cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved 
 in the summer air and the June sky spread blue over 
 France. 
 
 As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched 
 French soil, he gazed about him in delight. 
 
 The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze 
 came to him over the ripening fields and mingled with the 
 breath of the sea. 
 
 They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, 
 and Antony was free to wonder and to explore. Not 
 since he had left the oleanders and jasmines of New 
 Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those 
 of sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms 
 tramped down the streets singing the Marseillaise. A 
 group of fish-wives offered him mussels and crabs. 
 
 In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his 
 bag in his hand, he went away from the port toward the 
 wide avenue. 
 
 The bright colour of a red awning of a cafe caught 
 his eye; he decided to breakfast before going on to Paris. 
 
 Paris! The word thrilled him through and through. 
 
 At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf u la 
 216
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 217 
 
 mode" and "pommes de terre." It seemed agreeable 
 to speak French again and his soft Creole accent charmed 
 the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order. 
 
 Antony watched with interest the scene around him; 
 those about him seemed to be good-humoured, contented 
 travellers on the road of life. There was a neat alacrity 
 about the waiters in their white aprons. 
 
 A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony 
 gave her a sou and in exchange she gave him a white 
 rose. 
 
 " Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman." 
 
 He had never tasted steak and potatoes like these. 
 He had never tasted red wine like this. And it cost only 
 a franc ! He ordered his coffee and smoked and mused in 
 the bland June light. 
 
 He was happier than he had been for many a long day. 
 
 Eventful, tremulous, terrible and expressive, his past 
 lay behind him on another shore. He felt as though he 
 were about to seek his fortune for the first time. 
 
 As soon as Rainsford's generous gift became his own, 
 the possession of his little fortune, even at such a tragic 
 price, made a new man of Fairfax. He magnified its 
 power, but it proved sufficient to buy him a gentlemanly 
 outfit, the ticket to France, and leave him a little capital. 
 
 His plans unfolded themselves to him now, as he sat 
 musing before the restaurant. He would study in the 
 schools with Cormon or Julian. He had brought with 
 him his studies of Molly he would have them criticized 
 by the great masters. All Paris was before him. The 
 wonders of the galleries, whose masterpieces were familiar 
 to him in casts and photographs, would disclose themselves 
 to him now. He would see the Louvre, Notre Dame de 
 Paris. . . . 
 
 His spirits rose as he touched the soil of France. Now 
 Paris should be his mistress, and art should be his passion ! 
 
 His ticket took him second-class on a slow train and 
 he found a seat amongst the humble travelling world; 
 between a priest and a soldier, he smoked his cigarettes 
 and offered them to his companions, and watched the 
 river flowing between the poplars, the fields red with
 
 218 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 poppies, yellow with wheat. The summer light shining 
 on all shone on him through the small window of the 
 carriage, and though it was sunset it seemed to Fairfax 
 sunrise. The hour grew late. The darkness fell and the 
 motion of the cars made him drowsy, and he fell asleep. 
 
 He was awakened hy the stirring of his fellow- 
 passengers, by the rich Norman voices, by the jostling 
 and moving among the occupants of the carriage, and he 
 gathered his thoughts together, took his valise in his 
 hand and climbed down from the car. 
 
 He passed out with the crowd through the St. Lazare 
 station. He had in Havre observed with interest the 
 novel constructions of the engines and the rolling stock. 
 The crowd of market-women, peasants, cures, was 
 anonymous to him, but as he passed the engine which 
 had brought him from Havre, he glanced up at the 
 mechanician, a big, blond-moustached fellow in a blue 
 blouse. The engineer's face streamed with perspiration 
 and he was smoking a cigarette. 
 
 He had shunned engines and yards, and everything that 
 had to do with his old existence, for months; now he 
 nodded with a friendly sympathetic smile to the engine- 
 driver. 
 
 " Bien le bonjour," he said cheerfully, as he had heard 
 the people in the train say it, " Bien le bonjour." 
 
 The Frenchman nodded and grinned and watched 
 him limp down and out with the others to the waiting- 
 room called, picturesquely, the Hall of the Lost Foot- 
 steps " La Salle des Pas Perdus." 
 
 And Antony's light step and his heavy step fell among 
 the countless millions that come and go, go and come, 
 unmarked, forgotten to walk with the Paris multitudes 
 into paths of obscurity or fame " les pas perdus."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was the first beginning of summer dawn when he 
 turned breathlessly into the Rue de Rome and stood at 
 length in Pans. He shouldered his big bag and took his 
 bearings. At that early hour there were few people 
 abroad here and there a small open carriage, drawn by a 
 limp, melancholy horse and dominated by what he thought 
 a picturesque cabby, passed him invitingly. A drive in a 
 cab in America is not for a man of uncertain means, and 
 the folly of taking a vehicle did not occur to him. Along 
 the broad avenue at the street's foot, lights were still lit 
 in the massive lamps, shops and houses were closed, and 
 by a blue sign on the wall he read that he was crossing a 
 great avenue.' The Boulevard Haussmann was as tranquil 
 as a village street. A couple of good-looking men, whom 
 he thought were soldiers, caught his eye in their uniforms 
 of white trousers and blue coats. He asked them, touch- 
 ing his hat, the first thing that came to his mind: "La 
 Rue Mazarine, Messieurs would they direct him ? " 
 
 When he came out on the Place de la Concorde at 
 four o'clock he was actually the only speck visible in the 
 great circle. He stopped, enchanted, to look about him. 
 The imaginative and inadequate picture of the Place de la 
 Concorde his idea had drawn, faded. The light mists 
 of the morning swept up the Avenue des Champs Elysees, 
 and there stood out before his eyes the lines of the 
 Triumphal Arch, which to Antony said : Napoleon ! 
 
 On the left stretched gardens toward a great palace, 
 all that has been left to France and the glory which was her 
 doom. 
 
 From the spectral line of the Louvre, his eyes came 
 back to the melancholy statues that rose near him 
 
 219
 
 220 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 Strassburg, Luxemburg, Alsace and Lorraine. Huge 
 iron wreaths hung about their bases, wreaths that 
 blossomed as he looked, like flowers of blood and lilies of 
 death. 
 
 Then in front of him the calm, rose-hued obelisk 
 lifted its finger, and once again the shadow of Egypt fell 
 across the heart of a modern city. To Antony, the 
 obelisk had an affinity with the Abydos Sphinx, but 
 this obelisk did not rest on the backs of four bronze 
 creatures ! 
 
 The small cabs continued to tinkle slowly across the 
 Place; a group of young fellows passed by, singing on 
 their way to the Latin Quarter, from some fete in Mont- 
 martre they were students going home before morning. 
 In the distance, here and there, were a few foot passengers 
 like himself, but to Antony it seemed that he was alone 
 in Paris. And in the fresh beginning of a day untried and 
 momentous, the city was like a personality. In the 
 summer softness, in the tender, agreeable light, the. welcome 
 to him was caressing and as lovely as New York had been 
 brutal. 
 
 Antony resumed his way to the river, followed the 
 quays where at his side the Seine ran along, reddening 
 in the summer's sunrise. Along the river, when he crossed 
 the Pont des Arts, he saw the stirring of Parisian life. 
 He went on down the quays, past quaint old houses whose 
 traditions and history he wanted to know, turned off into 
 a dark street la Rue Mazarine. He smiled as he read 
 the sign. What had this narrow Parisian alley to do with 
 him? He had adopted it out of caprice, distinguished 
 it from all Paris. 
 
 He scanned the shops and houses; many were still 
 closed, neither milk-shops nor antiquity dealers suggested 
 shelter. A modest sign over a dingy-looking building 
 caught his eye. In the courtyard, in green wooden tubs, 
 flourished two bay-trees. 
 
 " Hotel of the Universe " Hotel de 1'Univers. 
 
 That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take 
 Antony Fairfax in. Behind the bay-trees a dirty, dis- 
 couraged looking waiter, to whom the universe had 
 apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least 
 glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 221 
 
 dress-suit; his linen was suspicious, but his head at this 
 early hour was sleekly brushed and oiled. 
 
 " No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, 
 as though he said, " The entire universe, thank God, has 
 not yet descended upon us." 
 
 For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth 
 floor. Antony yielded up his bag and bade the man show 
 the way.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HE could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set 
 forth into the city. He saw something of it from the 
 eave-window in his microscopic room. Chimney-pots, 
 stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the round of a 
 dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, 
 to him, a friendly sky he felt that he must quaff it all 
 at a draught. But the fatigue of his lame limb began to 
 oppress him. There was the weight of sleep on his eyelids, 
 and he turned gratefully to the small bed under the red 
 rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six feet 
 of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and 
 slept. 
 
 Dreams chased each other through his brain and he 
 stretched out his hands toward elusive forms in his sleep. 
 He seized upon one, thinking it was Bella, and when he 
 pressed his cheek to hers, the cheek was cold and the form 
 was cold. He slept till afternoon and rose still with the 
 daze upon him of his arrival and his dreams, and the first 
 excitement somewhat calmed. He had enough change 
 for his lodging and dinner, but nothing more. 
 
 He walked across the bridge and the light and brilliance 
 of the city dazzled him. He went into the Louvre, and 
 the coolness and breadth of the place fell on him like a 
 spell. He wondered if any in that vast place was as 
 athirst as he was and as mad for beauty. He wandered 
 through the rooms enthralled, and made libations to the 
 relics of old Egypt; he sent up hymns to the remains of 
 ancient Greece, and before the Venus of Milo gave up his 
 heart, standing long absorbed before the statue, swearing 
 to slave for the production of beauty. He found himself 
 stirred to his most passionate depths, musing on form and 
 artistic creation, and when the pulse in his heart became 
 
 222
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 223 
 
 too strong and the Venus oppressed his sense, he wandered 
 out, limped up the staircase and delivered up his soul at 
 the foot of the pedestal of the Winged Victory. He did 
 not go to the paintings ; the feast had been tremendous 
 he could bear no more. 
 
 On his way out of the Louvre he passed through the 
 Egyptian room. Ever since the Abydos Sphinx had 
 been brought to America, from the Nile, Egypt had 
 charmed him. He had read of Egypt, its treasures, in 
 the Albany library now and then on Sunday afternoons. 
 It had a tremendous attraction for him, and he entered the 
 room where its relics were with worship of the antique 
 in his soul. 
 
 He turned to go, when his foot touched something 
 on the floor and he stooped to pick it up a fine chain 
 purse heavy with pieces of gold. He balanced it in his 
 hand and looked around for the possible owner, but he was 
 the only sightseer. He went, however, quickly from the 
 museum, not knowing in just what manner to restore this 
 property, and in front of him, passing out on to the gallery 
 above the grand staircase, he saw a lady leisurely making 
 her exit. She was beautifully dressed and had such an 
 air of riches about her that he thought to himself, with 
 every reason, why should she not be the possessor of a 
 gold purse ? He went up to her. 
 
 " I beg pardon," he began, and as she turned he 
 recognized her in a moment as the woman by whose 
 carriage he had stood in the crowd on the day of the 
 unveiling of his statue he recognized her as the woman 
 who had drawn the veil of the Sphinx. She was Ceders- 
 holm's fiancee. " Have you lost anything, Madame ? " 
 
 She exclaimed: "My purse! Oh, thank you very 
 much." Then looked at him, smiling, and said, " But 
 I think I have seen you before. Whom must I 
 thank?" 
 
 He had his hat in his hand. His fine, clear brow over 
 which the hair grew heavily, his beautiful face, his strength 
 and figure, once seen and remembered as she had remem- 
 bered them in that brief instant in New York, were not 
 to be forgotten. Still the resemblance puzzled her. 
 
 "My name is Rainsford," he said quietly, ' Thomas 
 Eainsford. I am one of Mr. Cedersholm's pupils."
 
 224 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " If that is so/' she said, " you are welcome at my 
 house at any time. I am home Sundays. Won't you 
 give me the pleasure of calling, Mr. Rainsf ord ? " 
 
 He bowed, thanked her, and they walked down the 
 stairs together, and she was unable to recall where she 
 had seen this handsome young man.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN his little hotel that night he lighted a candle in a 
 tall nickel candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, 
 he peered into his mirror at his own face, which he took 
 pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a friend's it looked 
 back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it. 
 
 At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was 
 roused by the turning of the handle of his door. Some 
 one had come into the room and Antony, bolt upright, 
 heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then some- 
 thing slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, 
 shielded it, and to his amazement saw sitting on the floor, 
 his big form taking up half the little room, a young fellow 
 in full evening dress, an opera hat on the back of his 
 head. 
 
 "Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; 
 " I see I'm too late or too early, or shomething or other." 
 
 He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and 
 evidently drunk. Antony laughed and got half-way out 
 of bed. 
 
 " You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how 
 are you going to get out of it? Can you get up with a 
 lift?" 
 
 " Look here " the young man who was an American 
 and who would have been agreeable-looking if he had not 
 been drunk and hebetated, sat back and leaned comfort- 
 ably against the door " roomsh all right, good roomsh, 
 just like mine ; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed." 
 
 Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the 
 stranger was immense, as big as himself, and determined 
 and happy. He had made up his mind to pass his night 
 on the floor. 
 
 Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself 
 overcome with sleep. To the young man who barricaded 
 
 225
 
 226 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 the door, and who was already beginning to drowse, he 
 said pleasantly 
 
 " Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat." 
 " Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with 
 solemn dignity, "go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm 
 nothing but a little mountain flower," he quoted patheti- 
 cally. His head fell over, his big body followed it. 
 
 Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's 
 head, and turned in himself, amused by his singularly 
 companioned night. 
 
 "What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from 
 a voice not unpleasant, although markedly Western. 
 And he opened his eyes to see bending over him a ruffled, 
 untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to 
 have last seen sprawling on the floor. 
 
 " Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own ? " 
 asked the young man. 
 
 Antony told him. 
 
 " George ! " exclaimed the other, sitting down 
 on the bed and taking his head in his hands, " I was 
 screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in the Falls 
 of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not 
 kicking up a row here. My room is next or opposite or 
 somewhere, I guess that is, if I'm in the Universe." 
 
 Antony said that he was. 
 
 "I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolu- 
 tions had accelerated." 
 
 "There's water over there," said Antony; "you're 
 welcome to have it." 
 
 "See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half 
 the brick you seem and you are or you wouldn't have let 
 me snore all night on the carpet ring for Alphonse and 
 send him out to get some bromo seltzer. There's a 
 chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line 
 of drugs." 
 
 Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The 
 young man waited dejectedly; having taken off his coat 
 and collar, he looked somewhat mournfully at his silk hat 
 which, the worse for his usage of it, had rolled in a corner 
 of Fairfax's room. 
 
 Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 227 
 
 of the room, answered the bell, his advent announced 
 by the shuffling of his old slippers; but before he had 
 knocked the young man slid across the room and stood 
 flat behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence 
 would not be observed by the valet. 
 
 The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion 
 to ring, opened the door and stood waiting for the order. 
 He was a small, round-faced fellow in a green barege 
 apron, that came up and down and all over him. In 
 his hand he carried a melancholy feather duster. 
 
 " Le dejeuner, Monsieur ? " smiled Alphonse cordially, 
 " un cafe complet ? " 
 
 " Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, " and as well, 
 would you go to the pharmacy and get me a bottle of 
 bromo seltzer ? " 
 
 " B.Jen, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised 
 and ; 'considered Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. " Bien, 
 Monsieur," and he waited. 
 
 Fairfax was about to say : " Give me my waistcoat," 
 but remembering his secluded friend, sprang out of bed 
 and gave to Alphonse a five-franc piece. 
 
 " You're a brick," said the young man, coming out 
 from behind the door. " I'm awfully obliged. Now let 
 me get my head in a basin of water and I'll be back with 
 you in a jiffy." And he darted out evidently into the 
 next room, for Fairfax heard the door bang and lock. 
 
 Fairfax threw back his head and laughed. He was 
 not utterly alone in France, he had a drunken neighbour, 
 a fellow companion on the sixth floor of the Universe, 
 which, after all, divides itself more or less into stories in 
 more ways than one. He opened his window and let 
 in the June morning, serene and lovely. It shone on him 
 over chimney-pots and many roofs and slender towers 
 in the far distance. He heard the dim noise of the streets. 
 He had gone as far in his toilet as mixing the shaving 
 water, when the valet returned with a tray and presented 
 Fairfax with his first " petit dejeuner " in France. The 
 young man thought it tempting butter in a golden pat, 
 with a flower stamped on it. The little rolls and something 
 about the appearance of the little meal suggested his New 
 Orleans home he half looked to see a dusky face beam on 
 him " Massa Tony, chile "- - and the vines at the window.
 
 228 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "Void, Monsieur." Alphonse indicated the bromide. 
 "I think everything is here." The intelligent servant 
 had perceived the crushed silk hat in the corner and gave 
 a little cough behind his hand. 
 
 Fairfax, six feet and more in his stockings, blond and 
 good to look at, his bright humour, his charm, his soft 
 Creole accent, pleased Alphonse. 
 
 "I see Monsieur has not unpacked his things. If I 
 can serve Monsieur he has only to ask me." Alphonse 
 picked up the opera hat, straightened it out and looked at 
 it. " Shall I hang this up, Monsieur ? " 
 
 " Do, behind the door, Alphonse." 
 
 The man did so and withdrew, and no sooner his 
 rapid, light footsteps patted down the hall-way than 
 Fairfax eagerly seated himself before his breakfast and 
 poured out his excellent cafe au lait. The door was 
 softly pushed in again, shut to and locked the dissipated 
 young gentleman seemed extremely partial to locked doors 
 and Fairfax's companion of the night before said in an 
 undertone 
 
 " Go slow, nobody in the hotel knows I'm in it." 
 
 Fairfax, who was not going slow over his breakfast, 
 indicated the opera hat behind the door and the bromide. 
 
 " Hurrah for you and Alphonse," exclaimed the young 
 fellow, who prepared himself a pick-me-up eagerly, and 
 without invitation seated himself at Fairfax's table. 
 
 A good-looking young man of twenty-five, not more, 
 with a cheerful, intelligent face in sober moments, now 
 pale, with parched lips and eyes not clear yet. He had 
 washed and his hair was smoothly brushed. He had 
 no regularity of features such as Fairfax, being a well- 
 set-up, ordinary young fellow, such as one might see in 
 any American college or university. But there was a 
 fineness in the lines of his mouth, a drollery and wit in his 
 eyes, and he was thoroughly agreeable. 
 
 " I'm from the West," he said, putting his glass down 
 empty. "Robert Dearborn, from Cincinnati and I'm 
 no end obliged to you, old chap, whoever you are. You've 
 got a good breakfast there, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Have some," Antony offered with real generosity, 
 for he was famished. 
 
 "Well," returned Dearborn, "to tell you the truth,
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 229 
 
 I feel as if I were robbing a sleeping man to take it, for 
 I know how fiendishly hungry you must be. But, by 
 Jove, I haven't had a thing to eat since " and he laughed 
 " since I was a child." 
 
 He rinsed the glass that had held the bromide, poured 
 out some black coffee for himself and took half of Fairfax's 
 bread and half of his flower-stamped butter, and devoured 
 it eagerly. When he had finished he wiped his mouth and 
 genially held out his hand. 
 
 " Ever been hungry ? " 
 
 Antony did not tell him how lately. 
 
 " Good," nodded Dearborn, " I understand. Passing 
 through Paris ? " 
 
 " Just arrived." 
 
 "Well, I've been here for two whole years. By the 
 way," he questioned Antony, "you haven't told me your 
 name." 
 
 Fairfax hesitated because of a fancy that had come into 
 his mind when he had discovered the loss of his fortune. 
 
 " Thomas Eainsf ord," he said ; then, for he could not 
 deny his home, " from New Orleans." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed his companion, " that's why you 
 speak such ripping French. Now, do you know, to hear 
 me you wouldn't think I'd seen a gendarme or a Parisian 
 pavement. My Western accent, you must have remarked 
 it, refuses to mix with a foreign language. I can speak 
 French," he said calmly, " but they can't understand me 
 yet ; I have been here two years." 
 
 There was a knock at the door. Dearborn started and 
 held up his hand. 
 
 " If Monsieur will give me his boots," suggested the 
 mellow voice of Alphonse, " I will clean them." 
 
 Fairfax picked up his boots, the big shoe and the smaller 
 one, and handed out the pair through a crack in the door. 
 
 When once again the rabbit steps had pattered away 
 " Go on dressing," Dearborn said, " don't let me stop you. 
 You don't mind my sitting here a minute until Alphonse 
 does with his boot-cleaning operations. He's a magician at 
 that. They keep their boots clean, here, if they don't wash." 
 
 Dearborn made himself comfortable, accepted a 
 cigarette from the packet the landlady had given Fairfax, 
 and put his feet on the chair that Fairfax had vacated.
 
 230 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 "I went out last night to a little supper with some 
 friends of mine. The banquet rather used me up/' 
 
 He smiled, and Fairfax saw how he looked when he was 
 more himself. His hair, as the water dried on it, was 
 reddish, he was clean-shaven, his teeth were white and 
 sound, his smile agreeable. 
 
 " Now, if I hadn't been drunk, I shouldn't have come 
 back to the Universe. I was due a quarter of a mile away 
 from here. They'll keep me when they find me. I 
 haven't paid my bill here to Madame Poulet for six weeks. 
 But they are decent, trustful sort of people and can't 
 believe a chap won't ever pay. But I was fool enough to 
 leave my father's cable in my room and Madame Poulet 
 had it translated. I grant you it wasn't encouraging for a 
 creditor, Rainsford." 
 
 Antony heard his name used for tlie first time, the 
 R's rolled and made the most of. It seemed to bring 
 back the dead. 
 
 "Listen to the cable," said the communicative young 
 man : " ' You can go to the devil. Not a cent more from 
 me or your mother/ " 
 
 Fairfax, who was tying his cravat, turned around and 
 smiled, and he limped over to his visitor. 
 
 " It's not the most friendly telegram I ever heard," 
 he said. 
 
 " Step-father," returned the other briefly. " She 
 knows nothing about it my mother, I mean. I've been 
 living on her money here for two years and over and 
 it's gone ; but before I take a penny from him . . ." 
 
 " I understand," said Fairfax, going back to the mirror 
 and beginning to brush his hair. 
 
 " Did you ever have a mother ? " asked the red- 
 haired young man with a queer look on his face, and 
 added, " I see you have. Well, let's drop the subject, 
 then, but you may discuss step-fathers all you choose." 
 
 Fairfax, for he was not Rainsford yet, took a fancy 
 to his visitor, a fancy to his rough, deep voice; he liked 
 the eyes that were clearing fast, liked the kindly spirited 
 face and the ready, boy-like confidence. 
 
 "What are you up to in Paris?" he asked Dearborn, 
 regarding him with interest. 
 
 " I'm a playwright," said the other simply.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " A PLAYWRIGHT," Fairfax repeated softly. If Dearborn 
 had said " Ali Baba," Fairfax would scarcely have been 
 more surprised. 
 
 " You must know the Bohemian life here ? " he asked, 
 " even possibly know some artists ? " 
 
 " Well, rather/' drawled his companion ; " I live 
 among them. I don't know a single chap who isn't doing 
 something, burning the midnight oil or using the daylight 
 in a studio." 
 
 As Dearborn spoke, Fairfax, looking at him more 
 observantly, saw something in his countenance that 
 responded to his own feelings. 
 
 " What are you over here for, Eainsf ord ? " asked the 
 Westerner. 
 
 " I am a sculptor." 
 
 " Delightful ! " exclaimed his companion. " Where 
 are you going to work? With Carrier-Belleuse or 
 Rude?" 
 
 "Ah, I don't know I don't know where I can go or 
 what I can do." 
 
 His companion, with an understanding nod, said, 
 " Didn't bring over a gold-mine with you, perhaps ? " 
 
 As he said this he laughed, extended both his hands 
 and jumped up from his seat. 
 
 " I like you exceedingly," he exclaimed heartily. 
 "The governor had telegraphed me to go to the devil 
 and I thought I'd take his advice. The little supper I 
 was giving last night was to say good-bye to a hundred- 
 franc note, some money that I won at poker. I might 
 have paid some of this hotel bill, but I didn't. I wish 
 you had been there, Kainsford! But, never mind, you 
 
 231
 
 232 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 had the afterglow anyway ! No," he laughed, " let us 
 surprise them at home. I don't quite know how, but 
 let's surprise them." 
 
 Fairfax shook his head as though he didn't quite 
 understand. 
 
 " Is there no one who thinks you an insane fool for 
 going in for art? Nobody that your success will be gall 
 to?" 
 
 "No, I'm all alone." 
 
 " Come," urged the other, too excited to see the 
 sadness on his companion's face. " Come, isn't there some 
 one who will cringe when your statues are unveiled ? " 
 
 " Stop ! " cried Fairfax eagerly. 
 
 " Come on then," cried the boy ; " whoever it may be, 
 your enemy or my stepfather we will surprise them 
 yet!"
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 IN January of the following year he leaned out of the 
 window and smelled Paris, drank it in, penetrated by its 
 fragrance and perfume. He saw the river milkily flowing 
 between the shores, the stones of the quay parapet, the 
 arches of the bridges, the wide domain of roofs and 
 toweps. 
 
 The Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre had not yet begun to 
 rise, though they were laying its foundation stones, and 
 his eyes travelled, as they always did, through the fog to 
 the towers of Notre-Dame with its black, mellow front 
 and its melancholy beauty. The bourdon of the bells 
 smote sympathetically through him. No matter what 
 his state of mind might be, Paris took him out of himself, 
 and he adored it. 
 
 He was looking upon the first of the winter mists. 
 The first grey mystery had obscured the form of the city. 
 Paris had a new seduction. He could not believe now 
 that he had not been born in France and been always 
 part of the country he had adopted by temperament 
 and spirit. Like all artists, his country was where he 
 worked the best. For him now, unless the place were a 
 workshop, it could never be a hearthstone, and he took 
 satisfaction in recalling his ancestry on his mother's 
 side Debaillet, or, as they called it in New Orleans, 
 Ballet. As Arabella Ballet his mother had been beautiful ; 
 as Mrs. Fairfax she had given him Irish and French blood. 
 
 "Atavism," he said to Dearborn, "you cannot love 
 this place as I do, Bob. My grandfather escaped in the 
 disguise of a French cook to save his head in 1793. I 
 seem to see his figure walking before me when I cross 
 the Place de la Concorde, and the shadow of the guillotine 
 
 falls across his path." 
 
 233
 
 234 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 From his corner of the room Dearborn drawled, 
 " If the substance of the guillotine had fallen across 
 his neck, Tony, where would you be in our mutual 
 history ? " 
 
 Antony had asked his companion to call him Tony. 
 He had not been able to disassociate himself with every- 
 thing that recalled the past. 
 
 Fairfax's figure as he turned was dark against the 
 light of the window and the room was full of the shadows 
 of the early January twilight. He wore a pair of velveteen 
 breeches whose original colour might have been a dark, 
 rich blue. His flannel shirt (no longer red) was fastened 
 loosely at the neck by a soft black cravat under a rolling 
 collar. It was Sunday and he was working, the clay 
 white upon his fingers and nails. He wore an old pair of 
 slippers, and Dearborn on a couch in a corner watched him, 
 a Turkish drapery wound around his shoulders, for the 
 big room was chilly and it smelled of clay and tobacco 
 smoke. The studio was an enormous attic, running the 
 length of an hotel once of some magnificence, now a 
 tumble-down bit of still beautiful architecture. The room 
 was portioned off for the use of two people. Two couches 
 served in the night-time as their beds, there was a small 
 stove guiltless of fire, a few pieces of studio property, a 
 skylight, a desk covered with papers and books and manu- 
 scripts, and in the part of the room near the window and 
 under the skylight, Tony Fairfax, now Thomas Eainsford, 
 worked among his casts and drawings, amidst the barrels 
 of clay and plaster. To him, in spite of being almost 
 always hungry, in spite of the discomfort, of the constant 
 presence and companionship of another when he often 
 longed for solitude,' in spite of this, his domain was a 
 heaven. He had come into the place in June with 
 Dearborn. 
 
 Tony had paid a year's rent in advance. He was 
 working as a common journeyman in the studio of Barye, 
 and early in the morning, late at night, and on Sundays, 
 worked for himself eagerly, hungrily, like the slave of 
 old in Albany, and yet, with what a difference! He had 
 no one but himself to consider, but had the interest of 
 the atelier where he studied, even as he sold his skill 
 that it might be lost in the creations of more advanced
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 235 
 
 artists, and there, during the days of his apprenticeship, 
 his visions came to him, and what conceptions he then had 
 he tried to work out and to mature, when he had the chance, 
 in his own room. 
 
 Dearborn, who never left the studio except to eat, 
 smoked and worked and read all day. 
 
 The two men were sufficiently of a size to wear each 
 other's clothes. They had thought it out carefully and 
 had preserved from the holocaust, of the different financial 
 crises, one complete out-of-door outfit, from hat to boots 
 and those boots ! 
 
 It was " deplorable " the bookseller, whose little shelf 
 of books lay on the stone wall of the quay, said, it was 
 " deplorable " that such a fine pair of men should be 
 lame and in exactly the same fashion. Fairfax could 
 not walk at all in the other man's shoes, so his normal 
 frierid made the sacrifice and the proper shoes were pawned, 
 and Eobert Dearborn and Tony Fairfax had shared 
 alternately the big boot and the small one, the light and 
 the heavy step. And they were directed by such different 
 individuals, the boots went through Paris in such diverse 
 ways! 
 
 " By Jove ! " exclaimed Dearborn, examining the 
 boots carefully, " it isn't fair. You're walking these 
 boots of ours to death ! Who the deuce will take them 
 out in his bare feet to be repaired ? " 
 
 They were just as absurdly poor as this. Nobody 
 whose soul is not absorbed in art can ever understand what 
 it is to be so stupidly poor. 
 
 Dearborn, when he could be forced out of the house, 
 put on the shoes with reluctance; he was greatly annoyed 
 by the clatter of the big boot. The shoes didn't fit him 
 in the least. He would shuffle into the nearest cafe, if 
 his credit was good enough to permit it, and there, under 
 the small table on which he wrote page after page over 
 his cigarette and cup of black coffee, he hid the big 
 awkward shoe for as long as he could endure exile from 
 the studio. Then he came home. 
 
 Fairfax swung the boot down the stairs, he swung it 
 along the pavements of Paris! What distance he took 
 it! It seemed to have a wing at the heel. It tramped 
 through the quarters of the city from the quays to fine
 
 236 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 old streets, to forgotten alleys, to the Cite on the He, then 
 again by the fresh gay avenues of the Champs Elysees to 
 the Bois, again to the quays, and, when well up the river, 
 he would sometimes board the boat and come back down 
 the Seine, dreaming, musing, creating, and, floating home, 
 would take the big boot upstairs. 
 
 " By Jove, Tony ! " Dearborn remarked, examining 
 the boots closely, " it's not fair ! One of us will have to 
 drive if you don't let up, old man ! " 
 
 Dearborn, when he did not haunt his cafe and when 
 inspiration failed, would haunt the Bibliotheque Rationale, 
 and amongst the " Rats de litterature " savant, actor, 
 poet, amongst the cold and weary who lounge in the 
 chairs of the library to dream, to get warm, and to imagine 
 real firesides with one's own books and one's own walls 
 around them Dearborn would sit for hours poring over 
 old manuscripts from which he had hoped to extract in- 
 spiration, listening, as do his sort, for " the voices."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was a year of privation, but there were moments spent 
 on the threshold of Paradise. 
 
 His materials, barrels of clay and plaster, were costly. 
 Dearborn said that he thanked God he had a " metier " 
 requiring no further expenditure than a pot of ink and a 
 lot of paper. 
 
 "'-The ideas," he told Fairfax, " are expensive, and I 
 think, old man, that I shall have to buy some. I find that 
 they will not come unless I invite them to dinner ! " 
 
 Neither of the young men had made a hearty meal for 
 an unconsciously long time. The weather grew colder and 
 they lived as they could on Fairfax's day wage. 
 
 At this time, when during the hours of his freedom he 
 was housed with his companion, Fairfax was overwhelmed 
 by the rush of his ideas and his desire to create. He 
 would not let himself long for solitude, for he was devoted 
 to his friend and grateful for his companionship and 
 affection, but a certain piece of work had haunted him 
 since his first Sunday afternoon at the Louvre, and he 
 was eager to finish the statue he had begun and to send 
 it to the Salon. 
 
 The Visions no longer eluded him ever present, 
 sometimes they overpowered him by their obsession. 
 They flattered the young man, seeming to embrace him, 
 called to him, uplifted him until heights levelled before 
 his eyes and became roads upon which he walked lightly, 
 and his pride in his own power grew. Antony forgot to 
 be humble. He was his own master he had scorned the 
 Academies. For several weeks, when he first came to 
 Paris, he had posed as a model. Sitting there before the 
 students, glowing with shame and pride, his heart was 
 defiant, and not one of the students, who modelled the 
 
 237
 
 238 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 fine bust and head, imagined how ardent his heart was 
 or what an artist posed for them. Often he longed to 
 seize a tool from inefficient hands and say, " Here, my 
 children, like this, don't you see ? " 
 
 He learned much from the rare visits of the Master 
 and his cursory, hasty criticism, but he welcomed the 
 impersonal labour in the atelier of Barye, where he was 
 not a student but a worker, mechanical supposedly, 
 yet creative to his fingertips. And as he watched Barye 
 work, admiring him profoundly, eager for the man's 
 praise, crushing down his own individuality, careful to do 
 nothing but the technical, mechanical things he was given 
 to do there before his hand grew tired, while his brain 
 was fresh, he would plan and dream of what he would do 
 in his own attic, and he went back as a thirsty man to a 
 source. 
 
 There came the dead season. Barye shut his atelier 
 and went to Spain. There was nothing to do for Antony 
 Fairfax and he was without any means of making his 
 bread. After a few days of idleness, when his hands and 
 feet were chilblained and he could hardly pass the cafes 
 and restaurants, where the meals were cooking, without 
 a tightening of the chest, he thought to himself, " ISTow 
 is the time for the competition money to fall among 
 us like a shower of gold " ; but he had not heard one 
 word from America or from Falutini, to whom the result 
 was to have been written and who had Fairfax's 
 address. 
 
 Dearborn, in a pair of old tennis trousers, a shabby 
 black velvet jacket, sat Turkish fashion on his divan, his 
 writing tablet on his knees. For weeks past he had been 
 writing a five-act play 
 
 " Too hungry, Tony, by Jove, to go on. Every time 
 I start to write, the lines of some old-time menu run across 
 the page Canards a la presse,' Potage a la Reine. Just 
 now it was only pie and yellow cheese, such as we have out 
 in Cincinnati." 
 
 Fairfax was breaking a mould. By common consent 
 a fire had been built in the stove. Tony had taken 
 advantage of the warm water to mix his plaster. Dear- 
 born came over from his sofa. 
 
 "I wouldn't care to have a barrel of plaster roll on
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 239 
 
 with us 
 
 those chilblains of mine, Tony. It's a toss up 
 now, isn't it, which of us can wear the boots ? " 
 
 Pinched and haggard, his hands in his pockets, the 
 young fellow watched the sculptor. Fairfax skilfully 
 released his statue from the mould. He had been working 
 on this, with other things, for a month. He unprisoned 
 the little figurine, a little nude dancer, her arms above 
 her head, the face and smile faun-like. 
 
 " Pleine de malice," said Dearborn, " extremement 
 fine, my dear Tony. As an object of 'luxe' I find it 
 as exquisite as an article of food, if not as satisfying. 
 It's not good enough to eat, Tony, and those are the 
 only standards I judge by now." 
 
 Fairfax turned the figure between his fingers lovingly 
 lily-white, freshly cold, bits of the mould clinging to it, 
 small and fine, it lay in the palm of his shapely hand. 
 
 <<r lf you don't want the boots, Bob," he said, " I think 
 I'll go out in them." 
 
 The legal owner of the boots went out in them into the 
 damp, bitter cold. His big figure cut along through the 
 mist and he limped over the Pont des Arts towards the 
 Louvre. All Paris seemed to him blue with cold. The 
 river flowed between its banks with suppressed intent 
 and powerful westward rush, and its mighty flow expressed 
 indifference to the life and passion of existence along its 
 shores. 
 
 He leaned a moment on the bridge. Paris was personal 
 to him and the river was like its soul. He was faint from 
 lack of food and overstrain. 
 
 In the Louvre, other men of conglomerate costumes 
 as well as he sought the warm rooms. Tramps, vagrants 
 in pitiful rags, affected interest in the works of art, resting 
 their worn figures on the benches, exulting in the public 
 welcome of the museum. Fairfax was more presentable, 
 if as poor. He wore a soft black hat of good make and 
 quality, bought in a sporting moment by Dearborn early 
 in his career. Tony wore his own clothes, retained 
 because they were the newest, and a soft black scarf, the 
 vogue in the quarter, was tied under his collar in rather 
 an extravagant bow. He wandered aimlessly through the 
 rooms, glanced at the visitors and saw that they were 
 many, and when he had become thoroughly warm,
 
 240 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 screwed his courage to the sticking point and went out of 
 the front entrance. A little way from the guides he took 
 his place, and from his pocket his figurine. It showed quite 
 as a lily in the foggy light, pale and ashamed. Its nudity 
 appealed more to the sculptor because of this wanton 
 exposure to the vulgar herd. He trembled, began to 
 regret, but offered it, holding it out for sale. 
 
 Some dozen people passed him, glanced at him and 
 his small statue, but he would have passed unnoticed had 
 a lady not come slowly down the steps and seen him, 
 stopped and looked at him, though he did not see her 
 until she had approached. He flamed scarlet, covered 
 his statuette and wished that the cobbles of the pavement 
 would open and swallow him. 
 
 She was he thought of it afterward a hundred times 
 a woman of singular tact and an illumined sympathy, as 
 well as a woman of exquisite comprehension. 
 
 " Mr. Rainsford ! " she exclaimed. " You have 
 something to sell?" she added, and simply, as though 
 she spoke to an ordinary vendor, yet he saw that as she 
 spoke a lovely colour rose in her cheek under her veil, 
 and he found that he was not ashamed any more. 
 
 She put out her hand. It came from a mantle of 
 velvet and a cuff of costly fur he couldn't have dreamt 
 then how costly. He lifted his hat, bareheaded in the 
 cold, and laid the little figure in her hand. 
 
 "How perfectly charming!" she murmured, holding 
 it. And the dryad-like figure, with its slender arms 
 above its head and the faun-like, brilliant little face, 
 seemed perfection to her. She said so. " What a perfect 
 thing ! Of course, you have the clay original ? " 
 
 Fairfax could not speak. The sight of this woman so 
 worldly, elegant, sumptuous, at the first praise of his little 
 statue, he realized that he was selling it, and it struck him 
 as a crime his creation, his vision, hawking it as a fish- 
 wife might hawk crabs in the public street ! 
 
 He felt a great humiliation and could have wept 
 indeed, tears did spring to his eyes and the cold dried 
 them. 
 
 Two " sergents de ville " came up to them. 
 
 " Pardon, Monsieur/' asked one of them, " have you a 
 license ? "
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 241 
 
 Fairfax started, but the lady holding the little statue 
 turned quickly to the officials 
 
 " A license ? Pourquoi faire, mes amis ? " 
 
 " It is against the rules to sell anything in the streets 
 of Paris without a license/' said the policeman. 
 
 "Well," she exclaimed, "my friend has just made me 
 a gift. This gentleman is a friend of mine for whom I 
 am waiting to take me to my carriage. Allez vous en," 
 she smiled at them, " I will excuse you, and so will 
 Monsieur." 
 
 She was so perfectly mistress of the situation that he 
 had nothing to do but leave himself in her hands. 
 
 " You will let me take you home," she said, " in what- 
 ever direction you are going," and he followed her to her 
 little carriage, waiting before the curb. 
 
 S;he got in, gave the address of his studio to her 
 coachman, and the next thing he knew was that he was 
 rolling over the pavement he had so painfully traversed 
 a few hours before. 
 
 She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and 
 Antony listened. She talked enthusiastically, admiringly, 
 and he parried her questions as to when and where he had 
 worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette lay on 
 her lap. 
 
 At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, 
 taking up the self-same gold purse that he had restored 
 to her in the Louvre seven months ago 
 
 " I hope that I have enough money to pay for this 
 treasure, Mr. Eainsford. It's so beautiful that it must 
 be very dear. What is the price ? " 
 
 And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first 
 time in long, stammered 
 
 "Don't speak of price of course, I don't know you 
 well enough, but if you really like it, please take it." 
 
 " Take it ! " Mrs. Faversham had cried, " but I mean 
 to I adore it. Mr. Cedersholm will tell you how valuable 
 it is, but I must pay you for it, my dear Mr. Rainsford." 
 
 Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire 
 and his blue eyes illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's 
 voice, his personality, his outstretched hand bare, cold, 
 shapely, charmed her and impressed her, and he saw her 
 slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen
 
 242 FAIEFAX AND HIS PKIDE 
 
 her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had 
 driven away in her carriage, to be lost in the mists with 
 other people who did not matter to him, and poor as he 
 had started out, poorer, for he had not the statuette, he 
 limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage 
 for them both. 
 
 He thought whimsically : " I must feed up the whole 
 dramatis persons of old Bob's play, for he can't get on 
 until he's fed up the cast ! " 
 
 He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in 
 his pockets, his head a little bent. But no battle with 
 life now, be it what it would, could compare with his 
 battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold 
 and hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city 
 that he loved, he was working alone for the art he adored. 
 He believed in himself not once had he yet come to the 
 period of artistic despair. 
 
 During these seven months the little personal work 
 he had been able to do had only whetted his desire; 
 he was young, possessed of great talent and of brilliant 
 imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and deter- 
 mined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit 
 nor did the long period of labour injure his power of 
 production. He chafed, indeed, but he felt his strength 
 even as he pulled against the material things from which 
 he had to free himself. 
 
 And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly 
 up the Eue du Bac with his problems, he walked less 
 alone that night than ever in his life, for he was absorbed 
 in the thought of the woman. 
 
 He realized now how keenly he had observed her, 
 that she was very charming and very beautiful. He 
 could have drawn those dear features, the contour of her 
 neck and chin, the poise of her head, the curve of her 
 shoulder, and, imperceptible, but no less real and strong, 
 her grace and charm made her an entity to him, so much 
 so that she actually seemed to have remained by his side, 
 and he almost fancied, as he breathed the misty air, that 
 he breathed again the odour of the scent that she used, 
 sweet and delicate, and that he felt the touch of her 
 velvet sleeve against his coat. 
 
 He still had in his possession one object, which, if
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 243 
 
 pawned, might furnish enough money to pay for a meal. 
 It was a little seal, belonging to his mother, set in old 
 gold. 
 
 This afternoon, before leaving the studio, he had 
 thrust it in his waistcoat pocket, in case the little statuette 
 did not sell. 
 
 They gave him five francs for it, and he laid in a stock 
 of provisions, and with his little parcel once more he 
 limped up the studio stairs to Dearborn, who, wrapped in 
 the coverlet, waited by the stove. 
 
 He told his story, and Dearborn listened delightedly, 
 his literary and dramatic sense pleased by the adventure. 
 
 They were talking of the lady when the concierge, 
 toward nine o'clock, tapped at the door and handed 
 Antony a thick blue envelope, inscribed " Mr. Thomas 
 Rainsford " by a woman's hand. 
 
 " Tony, old man," said the playwright, as Antony's 
 fingers trembled turning the page, " the romance of a 
 poor young man has begun." 
 
 The letter ran as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAE MR. EAINSFOED, 
 
 " I am anxious to have a small bas-relief of 
 me, to give to Mr. Cedersholm when he shall come over. 
 Would you have time to undertake this work? I can 
 pose when you like. 
 
 " I know how many claims a man of talent hai upon 
 his time, and I want to secure some of yours and make it 
 mine. I venture to send this sum in advance. I hope 
 you will not refuse it. Perhaps you will dine with me 
 to-morrow and we will talk things over. 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " MARY FAVERSHAM." 
 
 Fairfax read this letter twice the second time the 
 words were not quite clear. He handed it across the 
 table to his companion silently. The five-hundred-franc 
 bill lay between the plate where the veal had been and 
 the empty coffee cup. 
 
 Dearborn, when he had eagerly read the note, glanced 
 up to speak to Fairfax and saw that he had turned away 
 from him. In his figure, as he bowed over, leaning his
 
 244 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 head upon his hands, there were the first marks of weari- 
 ness that Dearborn had ever seen. There had been 
 weariness in the step that limped up the stairs and crossed 
 the room when Fairfax had entered with the meagre 
 bundle of food. Dearborn leaned over and saw his friend's 
 fine profile, and there was unmistakably the mark of 
 fatigue on the face, flushed by fire and lamp-light. Dear- 
 born knew of his companion very little. The two had 
 housed together, come together, bits of driftwood on the 
 river of life, drawn by sympathy in the current, and few 
 questions had been asked. He knew that Eainsford was 
 from New Orleans, that he had studied in New York. 
 Of Antony's life he knew nothing, although he had won- 
 dered much. 
 
 He said now, lightly, as he handed the letter back, 
 "You haven't been playing perfectly square with me, 
 Tony. I'm afraid you have been wearing the boots tinder 
 false pretences, but, nevertheless, I guess you will have 
 to wear them to-morrow night, old man." 
 
 As Fairfax did not move, Dearborn finished more 
 gravely 
 
 " I would be glad to hear anything you are willing to 
 tell me about it." 
 
 Fairfax turned slowly and put the letter back in his 
 pocket. Then leaning across the table, in an undertone, 
 he told Dearborn everything everything. He spoke 
 quietly and did not linger, sketching for him rapidly his 
 life as far as it had gone. Twice Dearborn rose and fed 
 the stove recklessly with fuel. Once he stood up, took a 
 coverlet and wrapped it around him, and sat blinking like 
 a resurrected mummy. And Fairfax talked till Bella 
 flashed like a red bird across the shadows, lifted her lips 
 to his and was gone. Molly shone from the shadows and 
 passed like light through the open door. And, last of 
 all, Mrs. Faversham came and brought a magic wand and 
 she lingered, for Fairfax stopped here. 
 
 He had talked until morning. The dawn was grey 
 across the frosty pane when he rose to throw himself 
 down on his bed to sleep. The five-hundred-franc note 
 lay where he had left it on the table between the empty 
 plate and the empty cup. The fire was dead in the stove 
 and the room was cold.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 245 
 
 Dearborn, excited and interested, watched with the 
 visions of Antony's past and the visions of his own 
 creations for a long time. And Fairfax, exhausted by the 
 eventful day, troubled by it, touched by it, watched the 
 vision of a woman coming toward him, coming fatally 
 toward him, wonderfully toward him but he was tired, 
 and, before she had reached him, he fell asleep.
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 ANTONY waited in the drawing-room of her hotel in the 
 Avenue du Bois de Boulogne some quarter of an hour 
 before she came downstairs. He thought later that she 
 had purposely given him this time to look about and 
 grow accustomed to the atmosphere, to the room in which 
 he afterward more or less lived for several months. 
 
 There was not a false note to disturb his beauty- 
 loving sense. He stood waiting, on one side a long window 
 giving on a rose garden, as he afterward discovered, on 
 the other a group in marble by Cedersholm. He was 
 studying this with interest when he heard Mrs. Faversham 
 enter the room. She had foreseen that he would not be 
 likely to wear an evening dress and she herself had put on 
 the simplest of her frocks. But he thought her quite 
 dazzling, and the grace of her hands, and her welcome as 
 she greeted him, were divine to the young man. 
 
 " I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Kainsford." 
 
 Instantly he bent and kissed her hand. She saw him 
 flush to his fair hair. He felt a gratitude to her, a 
 thankfulness, which awakened in him immediately the 
 strongest of emotions. 
 
 She seemed to consider him a distinguished guest. 
 She told him that she was going to Eome when Mr. Ceders- 
 holm came over there would be a little party going down 
 to Italy. 
 
 Fairfax's eyes kindled, and in the few moments he 
 stood with her there, in her fragrant drawing-room, where 
 the fire in the logs sang and whispered and the lamp- 
 light threw its long, fair shadows on the crimson floors 
 and melted in the crimson hangings, he felt that he stood 
 with an old friend, ^with some one he had known his life 
 long and known well, even before he had known and 
 
 246
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 247 
 
 there was a poignancy in his treason even before he had 
 known his mother. 
 
 When the doors were thrown open and another visitor 
 was announced, he was jealous and regretful and glanced 
 at Mrs. Faversham as though he thought she had done 
 him a wrong. 
 
 " My vife, oui," said the gentleman who came in and 
 who was of a nationality whose type was not yet familiar 
 to Fairfax. " My wife is horsed to-night, chere Madame ; 
 she cannot come to the dinner a thousand pardons." 
 
 " I am sorry the Countess is ill." 
 
 Potowski, who had been told by his hostess not to 
 dress, had made up for the sacrifice as brilliantly as he 
 could. His waistcoat was of embroidered satin, hia 
 cravat a naming scarlet, and in his button-hole an exotic 
 flower which went well with his dark, exotic face. He 
 was a little ridiculous: short and fat, with a fashion of 
 gesticulating with his hands as though he were swimming 
 into society, but his expression was agreeable and candid. 
 His near-sighted eyes were naive, his voice sweet and 
 caressing. Rainsford saw that his hostess liked Potowski. 
 She was too sweet a lady to be annoyed by peculiarities. 
 
 In a few moments, the lame sculptor on one side and 
 the flashy Slav on the other, she led them to the little 
 dining-room, to an exquisite table, served by two men in 
 livery. 
 
 There was an intimacy in the apartment shut in by 
 the panelling from floor to ceiling of the walls. The 
 windows were covered with yellow damask curtains and 
 the footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet. 
 
 " Mr. Rainsford is a sculptor," his hostess told 
 Potowski. " He has studied with C'edersholm, but we 
 shall soon forget whose pupil he is when he is a master 
 himself." 
 
 " Ah/' murmured the young man, who was never- 
 theless thrilled. 
 
 " He is going to do a bas-relief of me, Potowski 
 that is, I hope he will not refuse to make my portrait." 
 
 "Ah, no," exclaimed Potowski, clasping his soft 
 hands, "not a bas-relief, chere Madame, but a statuary, 
 all of it. The figure, is not it, Mr. Rainsford? You hear 
 people say of the face it is beautiful, or the hand, or the
 
 248 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 head of a woman. I think it is all of her. It should be 
 the entirety always, I think. I think it is monstrous to 
 dissect the parts of the human body even in art. When 
 I go to the Museo and see a hand here, a foot there, a 
 torso somewhere else you will laugh, I am ridiculous, 
 but it makes me think I look at a haccident. 
 
 "Therefore" exclaimed Potowski, gaily swimming 
 toward the fruit and flowers with his soft hand, "begin, 
 cher Monsieur, by making a whole woman! I never, 
 never sing part of a hopera. I sing a lyric, a little complete 
 song, but in its entirety." 
 
 "But, my dear Potowski," Mrs. Faversham laughed, 
 " a bas-relief or a bust is complete." 
 
 "But why," cried the Pole, "why behead a lady? 
 As for a profile, it is destruction to the human face." He 
 turned to Fairfax. "You think I am a pagan. In 
 France they have an impolite proverb, ' Stupid as a 
 musician/ but don't think it is true. We see harmony 
 and melody in everything." 
 
 Apparently Potowski's lunacy had suggested some- 
 thing to Fairfax, for he said seriously 
 
 " Perhaps Mrs. Faversham will let me make a figure 
 of her some day " he hesitated " in the entirety," he 
 quoted; and the words sounded madness, tremendously 
 personal, tremendously daring. " A figure of her standing 
 in a long cloak edged with fur, holding a little statuette 
 in her hand." 
 
 " Charming," gurgled Potowski he had a grape in his 
 mouth which he had culled unceremoniously from the 
 fruit dish. " That is a very modern idea, Eainsford, but 
 I don't understand why she should hold a statuette in her 
 hand." 
 
 " For my part," said the hostess, " I only understand 
 what I have been taught. I am a common-place public, 
 and I prefer a classic bas-relief, a profile, just a little 
 delicate study. Will you make it for me, Mr. Kainsf ord ? " 
 
 The new name he had chosen, and which was never 
 real to him, sounded pleasantly on her lips, and it gave 
 him, for the first time, a personality. His past was 
 slipping from him ; he glanced around the oval room with 
 its soft lights and its warm colouring. It glowed like a 
 beautiful setting for the pearl which was the lady. The
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 249 
 
 dinner before him was delicious. It ceased to be food 
 it was a delicate refreshment. The perfume of the 
 flowers and wines and the cooking was intoxicating. 
 
 "You eat and drink nothing," Mrs. Faversham said 
 to him. 
 
 "No," exclaimed Potowski, sympathetically, peering 
 across the table at Eainsford. " You are suffering perhaps 
 you diet ? " 
 
 Antony drank the champagne in his glass and said he 
 was thinking of his bas-relief. 
 
 Potowski, adjusting a single eye-glass in his eye, 
 stared through it at Rainsford. 
 
 " You should do everything in its entirety, Mr. Rains- 
 ford. Eat, drink, sculpt and sing," and he swam out 
 again gently toward Rainsford and Mrs. Faversham, " and 
 love,-* 
 
 Antony smiled on them both his radiant smile. " Ah, 
 sir," he said, " is not that just the thing it is hard for us 
 all not to do? We mutilate the rest, our art and our 
 endeavours, but a young man usually once in his life loves 
 in entirety." 
 
 " I don't know," said the Pole thoughtfully, " I think 
 perhaps not. Sometimes it's the head, or the hands, 
 or the figure, something we call perfect or beautiful as 
 long as it lasts, Mr. Rainsford, but if we loved the entirety 
 there would be no broken marriages." 
 
 Mrs. Faversham, whom the musician entertained and 
 amused, laughed softly and rose, and, a man on each 
 side of her, went into the drawing-room, to the fire burning 
 across the andirons. Coffee and liqueurs were brought 
 and put on a small table. 
 
 " Potowski is a philosopher, is he not, Mr. Rainsford ? 
 When you hear him sing, though, you will find that his 
 best argument." 
 
 Potowski stirred six lumps of sugar into his small 
 coffee cup, drank the syrup, drank a glass of liqueur with 
 a sort of cheerful eagerness, and stood without speaking, 
 dangling his eyeglass and looking into the fire. Mrs. 
 Faversham took a deep chair and her dark, slim figure 
 was lost in it, and Antony, who had lit his cigarette, 
 leaned on the chimney-piece near her. 
 
 She glanced at him, at the deformed shoe, at his shabby
 
 250 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 clothes. He had made his toilet as carefully as he could ; 
 his linen was spotless, his cravat new and fashioned in a 
 big bow. His fine, thoughtful face, lit now by the pleasure 
 of the evening, where spirit and courage were never absent 
 if other marks were there; his fine brow with the slightly 
 curling blond hair bright upon it, and the profound blue 
 of his eyes he was different from any man she had seen, 
 and she had known many men and been a great favourite 
 with them. It pleased her to think that she knew and 
 understood them fairly well. She was thinking what she 
 could do for this man. She had wondered this suddenly, 
 the day Fairfax had met her and left her in the Louvre; 
 she had wondered more sincerely the evening she left him 
 at his door. She had asked him to her house in a spirit 
 of real kindness, although she had already felt his charm. 
 Looking at him now, she thought that no woman could 
 see him and hear him speak, watch him for an hour, and 
 not be conscious of that charm. She wondered what she 
 could do for Mr. Rainsford. 
 
 " Sit there, won't you ? " she indicated the sofa near 
 her "you will find that a comfortable place in which to 
 listen. Count Potowski is the one unmaterial musician 
 I ever knew. Time and place, food or feast, make no 
 difference to him." 
 
 Potowski, without replying, turned abruptly and went 
 toward the next room, separated from the salon by glass 
 doors. In another moment they heard the prelude of 
 Bohm's " Still as the Night/' and then Potowski began 
 to sing.
 
 CHAPTEK IX 
 
 THE studio underwent something of a transformation. 
 Dearborn devoted himself to its decoration. The crisp 
 banknote was divided between the two companions. 
 
 Fairfax ordered a suit of clothes on trust, a new pair 
 of boots on trust, and bought outright sundry necessaries 
 for<hTs appearance in the world. 
 
 And Dearborn spent too much in making the studio 
 decent, and bought an outfit of writing materials, a wadded 
 dressing-gown with fur collar and deep pockets, the cast- 
 off garment of some elegant rastaquouere, in a second- 
 hand clothing shop on the boulevard. He had no plans 
 for enjoying Paris. He philosophically looked at the 
 cast-off shoes that had gallantly limped with the two of 
 them up and down the stairs and here and there in the 
 streets on such devious missions. If he should be inclined 
 to go out he would wear them. His slippers were his real 
 comfort. He devoted himself to the interior life and to 
 his play. He had the place to himself, and after a long 
 day's work he would read or plan, looking out on the 
 quays and the Louvre, biting his fingers and weaving 
 new plots and making youthful reflections upon life. 
 
 In the evenings Fairfax would limp home. Five 
 days of the week he went to Barye's studio and worked 
 for the master. Twice a week he went to the Avenue du 
 Bois de Boulogne. Just how his friend spent his time 
 when he was not in the studio Dearborn wondered vainly. 
 The sculptor grew less and less communicative, almost 
 morose. Tony, took to smoking countless cigarettes and 
 sitting in the corner of the big divan, his arms folded across 
 his chest, his eyes fixed on some object which Dearborn 
 could not see. He would listen, or appear to, whilst 
 Dearborn read his play; or draw for him the scenario 
 
 251
 
 252 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 for a new play; or the young man would read aloud bits 
 of verse or prose that he loved and found inspiring. And 
 Antony, more than once, could hear his own voice as he 
 had declaimed aloud to the little cousins on a winter's 
 afternoon, " St. Agnes' Eve, how bitter chill it was," or 
 some other favourite repeated to shining eyes and flushed 
 attention. Very often what Dearborn read was neither 
 familiar nor distinguishable, for Fairfax was thinking about 
 other things. They were not always alone in the work- 
 room. Dearborn had friends, and those of them who had 
 not gone away on other quests or been starved out or 
 pushed out, would come noisily in of an evening, bringing 
 with them perhaps a man with a fiddle and a man with a 
 flute, and they would dance and there would be beer 
 and "madeleines" and gay amusement of a very in- 
 offensive kind, of a youthful kind. There would be 
 dancing and singing, and sometimes Fairfax would take 
 part in it all and sing with them in his pleasant baritone 
 and smile upon them; but he liked it best when they were 
 alone, and Dearborn did too; and in Fairfax's silence 
 and the other man's absorption they nevertheless daily 
 grew firmer and faster friends. 
 
 " Bob," Fairfax said and as he spoke he abruptly 
 interrupted Dearborn in the most vital scene of his act 
 " I can't take a penny from her for this portrait." 
 
 Dearborn dropped his manuscript on his knee. His 
 expression was that of a slightly hurt egotism, for he had 
 sat up all night working over this scene and burned all 
 day to read it to Fairfax. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, don't ask me to cough up the two 
 hundred and fifty francs. That's all I ask," he said a 
 little curtly. 
 
 " I shall give her some study, one of these other 
 statuettes," Fairfax said moodily, " some kind of return 
 for the five hundred francs." 
 
 " She wouldn't care for anything I have got, would 
 she, Tony ? " Dearborn put his hands in the ample 
 pockets and displayed his voluminous wrapper. " I'm 
 crazy about this dressing-gown," he said affectionately. 
 " It has warmed and sheltered my best thoughts. It has 
 wrapped around and comforted my fainting heart. It's 
 hatched ideas for me; it's been a plaidie to the angry
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 253 
 
 airs. Tony, she wouldn't take the dressing-gown, would 
 she?" 
 
 " Eot ! " exclaimed his friend fiercely. " Don't be 
 an ass. Don't you see how I feel ? " 
 
 " No, I don't," said the other simply. " I am not a 
 mind reader. I'm an imaginator. I can make up a 
 lot of stuff about your feeling. I daresay I do invent. 
 You will see this in my play some day. You are really 
 an inspiration, old man, but as for having an accurate 
 idea of your feelings . . . ! For three weeks, ever since 
 that banknote fluttered amongst the crumbs of our table, 
 you have scarcely said a word to me, not a whole para- 
 graph." He shook his finger emphatically. " If I were 
 not absorbed myself, no doubt I should be beastly, 
 diabolically lonesome." 
 
 Antony seemed entirely unmoved by this picture. 
 " I think I shall go to Rome, Bob," he began, then cried : 
 " No, I mean to St. Petersburg." 
 
 " It will be less expensive," Dearborn suggested dryly, 
 " and considerably less travel, not to go to the Bois de 
 Boulogne." 
 
 " I shall finish this portrait this week," Fairfax 
 went on. " Now I can't scrape it out and begin again. 
 I have done it twice. It would be desecration, for it's 
 mightily like her, and my reason for my going there is 
 over." 
 
 " Well, how about that full-length figure of her in 
 furs and velvets, holding a little statuette in her hands, 
 that you used to rave about doing? If at first you make 
 a bas-relief, begin and begin again ! There are busts and 
 statues, as there are odes and sonnets and curtain- 
 raisers and five-act tragedies." 
 
 " Yes," returned Fairfax, " there are tragedies, no doubt 
 about it." 
 
 Fairfax, smoking, struggled with the emotions rising 
 in him and which he had no notion of betraying to his 
 friend. In the corner where Dearborn had rolled it, 
 for he made the whole studio pretty much his own now, 
 was the statue Fairfax was making of his mother. It was 
 covered with a white cloth which took the lines and form 
 of the head and shoulders. It stood ghostly amongst the 
 shadows of t^e room and near it, on a stool, were Antony's
 
 254 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 sculpting tools, his broad wooden knives and a barrel of 
 plaster. His gaze wandered to these inanimate objects, 
 nothing in themselves, but which suggested and made 
 possible and real his art the reason for his existence. 
 Now, when he stopped modelling Mrs. Faversham, he 
 would go on with the bust of his mother. He turned his 
 eyes to Dearborn. 
 
 " I have been up there for five weeks ; I have been 
 entertained there like a friend; I have eaten and drunk; 
 I have accepted her hospitality; I have gone with her 
 to the plays and opera. I have pretty well lived on her 
 money." 
 
 "All men of the world do that/' Dearborn said 
 reasonably. " It's an awfully nice thing for a woman to 
 have a handsome young man whom she can call on when 
 she likes." 
 
 Fairfax ignored this and went on. " I have met her 
 friends, delightful and distinguished people, who have 
 invited me to their houses. I have never gone, not once, 
 not even to see Potowski. Now I shall go up next Sunday 
 and finish my work, and then I'm going away." 
 
 Dearborn crossed his thin legs, his beloved knit 
 slippers, a remnant of his mother's affection, dangling on 
 the toe of hii foot. He made a telescope of his manu- 
 script and peered through it as though he saw some 
 illumination at the other end. 
 
 " You are not serious, Tony ? " 
 
 Antony left the sofa and came over to his friend. Five 
 weeks of comparative comfort and comparative release 
 from the anxiety of existence that is, of material 
 existence had changed him wonderfully. His contact 
 with worldly people, the entertainments of Paris, the 
 stimulant to his mind and senses, his pleasures, had 
 done him good. His face was something fuller. He had 
 come home early from dining with Mrs. Faversham, and 
 in his evening dress there was an elegance about him that 
 added to his natural distinction. In the lapel of his 
 coat drooped a few violets from the boutonniere that had 
 been placed by his plate. 
 
 " Cedersholm is coming next week." He lit a freah 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Well," returned Dearborn, coolly, "he is neither the
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE *56 
 
 deluge nor the earthquake, but he may be the plague. 
 What has he got to do with you, old man ? " 
 
 " She is going to marry him/' 
 
 "That/' said Dearborn with spirit, "is rotten. Now, 
 I will grant you that, Tony. It's rotten for her. Things 
 have got so mixed up in your scenario that you cannot 
 frankly go and tell her what a hog he is. That is what 
 ought to be done, though. She ought to know what 
 kind of a cheat and poor sort she is going to marry. In 
 real life or drama the simple thing never happens." 
 Dearborn smiled finely. " She ought to know, but you 
 can't tell her." 
 
 " No," laid his friend slowly, " nor would I. But 
 neither can I meet him in her house or anywhere else. 
 I think I should strike him." 
 
 "You didn't strike him, though," said Dearborn, 
 meaningly, " when you had a good impersonal chance." 
 
 " I wish I had." ' 
 
 " I thought you told me they were all going to Rome ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Faversham doesn't want to go." 
 
 " Ah," murmured Dearborn, nodding, " she doesn't." 
 
 " No." Fairfax did not seem to observe his friend's 
 tone. " She is mightily set on having me meet Ceders- 
 holm. She wants to have him patronize me, help me ! " 
 He laughed dryly and walked up and down the studio 
 into the cold, away from the fire, and then back to Dear- 
 born in his dressing-gown and slippers. " Patronize me, 
 encourage me, pat me on the back put me in the way of 
 meeting men of the world of art and letters, possibly 
 work with him. She has all sorts of kindly patronizing 
 schemes. But she doesn't know that I have been hungry 
 and cold, and have been housed and fed by her money. 
 Perhaps she does, though," he cried furiously to Dear- 
 born. " No doubt she does. Do you think she does, 
 Bob?" 
 
 " No, no don't be an ass, Tony, old man." 
 
 "You see, now don't you, that I can't stay in Paris, 
 that I can't meet that man and knock him down not 
 tell her that I am not the poor insignificant creature that 
 she thinks, that without me Cedersholm could not have 
 whipped up his old brain and his tired imagination to 
 have done the work that brought him so marked a succesi.
 
 256 
 
 I would have to tell her what I did, and that, crude and 
 unschooled as I was, she would have to see that he was 
 afraid of me, afraid of my future and my talent. Oh, 
 Dearborn ! " he cried, throwing up his arms. 
 
 Dearborn left his chair and went to Fairfax and put 
 his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " That's right," he said heartily, " blurt it all out, old 
 man. Some day, when the right time comes, you will let 
 it out to him." 
 
 Fairfax leaned on Dearborn's arm. "There were 
 eight of us at dinner to-night," he said, " and Cedersholm 
 was the general topic. He is much admired. He is to 
 have the Legion of Honour. Much of what they said 
 about him was just, of course, perfectly just and fair, but 
 it sickened me. They were enthusiastic about his char- 
 acter, his generosity to his pupils, his sympathy with 
 struggling artists, and one man, who had been at the 
 unveiling of the Sphinx, spoke of my Beasts." 
 
 Dearborn felt Antony's hand trembling on his 
 arm. 
 
 "The gall rose up in my throat, Bob. I saw myself 
 working in a sacred frenzy in his studio, sweating blood, 
 and my joy over my creations. I saw myself eager, 
 hopeful, ardent, devoted, with a happy, cheerful belief 
 in everybody. I had it then, I did indeed. Then I saw 
 my ruined life, my wasted years as an engineer in Albany, 
 my miserable, my cruel marriage, the things I stooped to 
 and the degradation I might have known. My mother, 
 whom I never saw again, called me my wife, my child, 
 passed before me like ghosts. If I could have had a 
 little encouragement from him then, only just my due, 
 well ... I was thinking of all those things whilst they 
 spoke of him, and then I looked over to her. . . ." As 
 he spoke Mrs. Faversham's name, Antony's voice softened. 
 ". . . And she was looking at me so strangely, strangely, 
 as though she felt something, knew something, and my 
 silence, seemed ungracious and proof of my jealousy; 
 but I could not have said a warm word in praise of him 
 to save my character in her eyes. When we were alone 
 after dinner she asked me, in a voice different to any tone 
 I have heard from her, ' Don't you like Mr. Cedersholm ? 
 You don't seem to admire him. I have never heard you
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 257 
 
 speak his name, or say a friendly word about him/ and 
 I couldn't answer her properly, and she seemed troubled." 
 
 Fairfax stopped speaking. The two friends stood 
 mutely side by side. Then Antony said more naturally 
 
 " You see a little of how I feel, Bob/' 
 
 And the other replied, " Yes, I see a little of how you 
 feel " ; but he continued with something of his old drollery : 
 " I would like to know a little of how she feels." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 Antony's voice was so curt, and his words were so 
 short, that Dearborn was quick to understand that it 
 would not be wise to touch on the subject of the woman. 
 
 " Why, I mean, Tony, that it is a valuable study for a 
 playwright. I should like to understand the psychology 
 of -all characters." 
 
 Fairfax shrugged impatiently. " Confound you, you 
 are a brute. All artists are, I reckon. You drive your 
 chariot over human hearts in order to get a dramatic 
 point." 
 
 Here the post came and with it a blue letter whose 
 colour was familiar to Dearborn now, and he busied 
 himself with his own mail under the lamp. Fairfax 
 opened his note. It had no beginning. 
 
 " If it does not rain to-morrow, will you take me to 
 Versailles ? Unless you send me word that you cannot go, 
 I will call for you at ten o'clock. We will drive through 
 the Bois and lunch at the Reservoirs." 
 
 For a moment it seemed as though Antony would 
 hand over his note to Dearborn, as he had handed Mrs. 
 Faversham's first letter the night it came. But he re- 
 placed it in its envelope and put it in his pocket.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HE wrote her that he should not be able to go to Versailles. 
 He deserted his day's work at Barye's and remained at 
 home modelling. And Dearborn, seeing Fairfax's distrac- 
 tion, went out early and did not return until dark. 
 Fairfax found himself alone again, alone with his visions, 
 alone with his pride, alone with powerful andtnew emotions. 
 
 Sometimes in January, in the middle of the month, 
 days come that surprise the Parisians with their incon- 
 stancy and their softness. The sun shone out suddenly 
 and the sky was as blue as in Italy. 
 
 Fairfax could see the people strolling along the quays, 
 with coats open, and the little booksellers did a thriv- 
 ing business and the " bateaux mouche " shot off into 
 the sunlight bound toward the suburbs which Fairfax 
 had learned in the summer time to know and love. 
 Versailles would be divine on such a day. 
 
 His hours spent at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne 
 must have been impersonal. His first essay he destroyed 
 and began again. He did not want to bring these intimate 
 visits suddenly to an end. But when his sitter very 
 courteously began to question him, he was uncommuni- 
 cative. He could not tell her the truth. He did not 
 wish to romance or to lie to her. Mrs. Faversham, both 
 sensitive and "fine," respected his reticence. But she 
 found out about him. They talked of art and letters 
 and life in general, circling around life in particular, and 
 Fairfax revealed himself more than he knew, although of 
 his actual existence he told nothing. He enjoyed the 
 charm of the society of a worldly woman, of a clever 
 woman. He fed his mind and cultivated his taste, 
 delighted his eyes with the graceful picture she made, 
 sitting, her head on her hand, posing for her portrait. 
 
 258
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 259 
 
 Her features were not perfect, but the ensemble was 
 lovely and he modelled with tenderness and pleasure 
 until the little bas-relief was magically like her. He 
 was forced to remember that the study was intended as a 
 present for Cedersholm. He was very silent and very 
 often wondered why she asked him so constantly to her 
 house, why she should be so interested in so ungracious a 
 companion. This morning, in his studio on the Quai, he 
 unwrapped his statue of his mother. It was a figure 
 sitting in her chair, a book in her hand, as he had seen her 
 countless times on the veranda of the New Orleans 
 house, dreaming, her face lifted, her eyes looking into the 
 distance. He went back to his work with complicated 
 feelings and a heart at which there was a new ache. He 
 ha4"hardly expected that this statue, left when he had 
 gone to take up the study of another woman, would 
 charm him as it did. He began to model. As he worked, 
 he thought the face was singularly like Bella's a touch 
 to the head, to the lips, and it was still more like the 
 young girl. Another year was gone. Bella was a woman 
 now. Everything, as he modelled, came back to him 
 vividly all the American life, with its rush and struggle. 
 So closely did it come, so near to him, that he threw down 
 his tools to walk up and down in the sunlight pouring 
 through the big window. He took up his tools and began 
 modelling again. The statuette was tenderly like his 
 mother. He smoothed the folds at her waist and saw 
 under the clay the colour of the violet lawn with its 
 sprinkling flowers of darker violet. He touched the 
 frills he had indicated around the throat and felt the 
 stirring of the Southern breeze across his hand and 
 smelled the jasmine. He paused after working for two 
 hours, standing back, resting his lame limb and musing 
 on the little figure. It grew to suggest all womanhood: 
 Molly, as he had seen her under the lamp-light Mrs. 
 Faversham, as he had watched her leaning on her hand 
 not Bella. He looked and thought. Bella was a child, a 
 little girl. There was nothing reposeful or meditative 
 about Bella, yet he had seen her pore over a book, her 
 hair about her face. Would she ever sit like this, tranquil, 
 reposeful, reading, dreaming? The face was like her, 
 but the resemblance passed.
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 MRS. FAVERSHAM'S dresses and jewels, her luxuries, her 
 carriages and her horses, the extravagance of her life, had 
 not dazzled Antony; his eyes had been pleased, but her 
 possessions were a distinct envelope surrounding her and 
 separating them. After watching Potowski's natatorial 
 gestures, Fairfax had longed to swim out of the elegance 
 into a freer sea. 
 
 He had told her nothing of his companion or of his 
 life. He often longed to stuff some of the dainties of the 
 table into his pockets for Dearborn, to carry away some 
 of the fire in his hands, to bring something of the comfort 
 back, but he would not have spoken for the world. Once 
 she had broached the subject of further payment, and 
 had seen by his tightening lips that she had made a 
 mistake. In spite of the fact of his reserve and that he 
 was proud to coldness and sometimes not quite kind, 
 intimacy grew between them. Mrs. Faversham was 
 engaged to be married, but Fairfax did not believe that 
 she loved Cedersholm. What her feelings were, or why 
 she wanted to marry him, he could not guess. The 
 intimacy between them was caused by what they knew 
 of each other as human beings, unknown, unexplained, 
 unformulated. There was a tremendous sympathy, and 
 neither the man nor the woman knew how real it was. 
 And although there was her life she was five years his 
 senior and his life with its tragedies, its depths and its 
 ascensions, although there was all this unread and un- 
 spoken between them, neither of them, when they were 
 together, was conscious of any past. A word, a touch, 
 a look, a hazard chance would have revealed to them how 
 near they stood. 
 
 As he went on modelling, he found that he was beginning 
 
 260
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 261 
 
 to think of her as he had not let himself 3o during the 
 weeks when she had sat for him. He found that he could 
 not go on with his work now and think of her. He had 
 voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where 
 he might have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told 
 him that she had written to Cedersholm about him he 
 had smiled. 
 
 " He will not recall my name. I was an obscure 
 pupil with others. He will not remember Tom Rains- 
 ford." 
 
 Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. 
 The subject was never mentioned between them again. 
 Except as he heard it in general conversation, Ceders- 
 holm' s name was no longer frequently on Mrs. Faversham's 
 lips:- He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully 
 and pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a 
 pile of books which he had carefully done up to return to 
 Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained orders for him from 
 her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why should 
 he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advan- 
 tage of her kindness and generosity? Why should not 
 her influence help him on his stony way? What part 
 did his pride play in it ? Was it on account of Cedersholm, 
 or was it something else ? 
 
 At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little 
 cafe where he was known and popular. The little room 
 was across a court-yard filled with potted plants on which 
 the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day in the 
 sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with some- 
 thing like spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, 
 filled with the clatter and bustle of the noon meal served 
 to hungry students and artists. The walls were painted 
 by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young artists 
 who could not pay their accounts and had settled their 
 scores by leaving paintings on the walls, and one could 
 read distinguished names. When Fairfax came here, 
 as he sometimes did, he always took a little table in the 
 second and darker room by another window which gave 
 on a quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the 
 statues and remains of an old Louis XV palace. This 
 room was reserved for the older and quieter clients, and 
 here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a
 
 262 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and 
 an old portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled 
 at him. He would catch her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, 
 always alone. 
 
 Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, 
 had eyed him and elbowed him, but not one had tempted 
 him. There was no merit in his celibacy, but to-day, 
 as he glanced over at the English girl-student, something 
 about her caught his attention as never before. She was 
 half turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her 
 side with the remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was 
 bowed on her hands. She looked dejected, forlorn, 
 bringing her little unhappiness to the small restaurant 
 where so many stragglers and aspirants brought their 
 hopes and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity 
 seemed on this day uninspired, cast down, and he had 
 remarked her generally before because of her gaiety, her 
 eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew that 
 she would be sympathetic with him. 
 
 In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling 
 his own loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at 
 her and saw how miserably poor her dress was, how rusty 
 and dusty her cape, how trodden down were her little 
 shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver hat to 
 her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair 
 wag gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony 
 looked at her she took out her handkerchief and wiped 
 something off her cheek and from her eyes. His luncheon 
 of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up 
 his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table 
 where the English girl sat bowed over. 
 
 "Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, 
 if you don't want me." He saw her start, wipe her eyes 
 and look up with a sob on her lips. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. 
 " Sit down, it is good of you." 
 
 The girl covered her face with her hands for a second 
 and then wiped her eyes determinedly, as if she fetched 
 herself out of stony depths. She smiled tremulously 
 and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a rose. 
 
 "Garcon," he ordered, "fetch two bocks. Yes, 
 mademoiselle, it will do you good."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 263 
 
 " I say," she fluttered, " were you lonely over there in 
 your corner ? " 
 
 Fairfax nodded. She put out her little hand, atained 
 with paint and oil, and it was cold and delicate as it 
 touched his. It seemed to need the strength of the 
 man's big, warm grasp. 
 
 " I have always liked your face, do you know 
 always," she said. " I knew that you could be a real 
 pal if you wanted. You are not like the others. I 
 expect you are a great swell at something. Writing?" 
 
 " No, I am a workman in Barye's studio a sculptor." 
 
 " Oh," she said incredulously. " You look ' arrive,' 
 awfully distinguished. I expect you really are something 
 splendid." 
 
 The beer came foaming. The girl lifted her glasg 
 with a hand which trembled. Tears hung on her lashes 
 still, ready to fall, but she was a little sport and full of 
 character and life. She nodded at Fairfax and mur- 
 mured 
 
 " Here's to our being friends." 
 
 Her voice was sweet and musical. They drank the 
 draught to friendship. 
 
 Fairfax asked cruelly : " What made you cry ? " 
 
 She touched her portfolio. " There," she said, " that 
 is the reason. My last fortnight's work. I draw at 
 Julian's, and I had a fearful criticism this morning, most 
 discouraging. I am here on my own." She stopped and 
 said rather faintly : " Why should I tell you ? " 
 
 " We drank just now to the reason why you should." 
 
 "That's true," she laughed. "Well, then, this is my 
 last week in Paris. I will have to go back to England and 
 drop painting, unless they tell me that I am sure to have a 
 career and that it is worth while." 
 
 A career! She was a soft, sweet, tender little creature 
 in spite of her good comradeship and the brave little tilt 
 to her hat, and she was fit for a home nest, and no more 
 fit to battle with the storm of a career than a young bird 
 with a tempest. 
 
 " Let me see your portfolio, will you ? " 
 
 " First," she said practically, " eat your steak and your 
 potatoes." Touching her eyes, she added : " I thought of 
 what Goethe said as I cried here 'Wer nie sein Brot
 
 264 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 mit Thraenen ass ' only if s not the first bread and tears 
 that have gone together in this room, I expect/' 
 
 " No," returned Fairfax, " I reckon not, and you are 
 lucky to have the bread, Mademoiselle. Some have only 
 tears/' 
 
 " I know," she returned softly, " and I have been most 
 awfully lucky so far." 
 
 When they had finished he made the man clear away 
 the things, and she spread out the contents of her port- 
 folio before him, watching his face, as he felt, for every 
 expression. He handled thoughtfully the bits of card- 
 board and paper, seeing on them only the evidence of 
 a mediocre talent, a great deal of feeling, and the indica- 
 tions of a sensitive nature. One by one he looked at 
 them and turned them over, and put them back and tied 
 up the green portfolio by its black tapes. Then he 
 looked at her, saw how white her little face had grown, 
 how big and blue her eyes were, how childlike and in- 
 adequate she seemed to life. 
 
 " You need not speak," she faltered. " You were 
 going to say I'm no good. I don't want to hear you 
 say it." 
 
 Impulsively, he put out his strong hands and took hers 
 that fluttered at her coat. 
 
 " Why should you care for what I say ? You have your 
 masters and your chiefs." 
 
 " Yes," she nodded, " and they have been awfully 
 encouraging, all of them, until to-day." 
 
 Fairfax looked at her earnestly. " You must not mind 
 if you feel that you have got it in you. Don't seek to hear 
 others' opinions, just go boldly, courageously on. What 
 I say has no meaning." 
 
 He dropped her hands and the colour came back 
 somewhat into her face. 
 
 " What you say has importance, though," she answered. 
 " I have the feeling that you are somebody. Anyhow, I 
 have watched you every time you came. I think you know 
 things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should 
 believe you I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm 
 any good. Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. 
 I don't want to go on being a fool." 
 
 As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 265 
 
 notes of a fiddle and a flute, for two wandering musicians, 
 habitues of these smaller cafes, had wandered in to earn 
 the price of their luncheon. They were playing, not very 
 well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in 
 vogue in the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently 
 brilliant, had found its way around to the back of the 
 place, and over the court with the ruined marbles the 
 light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax 
 and the little girl. 
 
 " What do you say/' he suggested abruptly, " to coming 
 with me for the afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram 
 and ride off somewhere." 
 
 He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon 
 (the girl's score had already been settled), and stood 
 waiting. She fingered the tapes of her closed portfolio, 
 her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, 
 shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn 
 felt hat, on the little figure which had been so full of 
 courage and of dreams. Then she looked up at Antony 
 and rose. 
 
 " I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, 
 tucked it under his arm, and they walked out together, 
 through the smoky larger room where part of the lunchers 
 were joining in the chorus of the song the musicians 
 played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter 
 saw the two pass out together, as two pass together often 
 from those Bohemian refuges. Some one, as the door 
 opened and shut on Antony and the girl, cried : " Vive 
 1'amour ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, 
 lifted high above Paris and the river, alongside of the 
 vulgar head, alongside of the strange little English girl, 
 Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her heart. She 
 took his interest for granted. With an appreciative 
 understanding of human nature, and as though she had 
 heen bearing a burden for years which she had never 
 let slip, she rested it now, and her blue eyes on his, her 
 hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had slipped 
 on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked 
 to Fairfax. By the time the tram stopped before the 
 Palace of Versailles, he had heard her story. She was 
 the daughter of an Irish clergyman. Nora Scarlet was 
 her name. 
 
 Nora and Molly ! 
 
 But they were very different. This girl was as gay 
 as a lark. She laughed frankly aloud, musically, and 
 put her hand on his with a free " camaraderie." She 
 made sparkling little faces at him and called him softly, 
 " Ami." 
 
 " My name is Nora, Nora Scarlet, but I don't want you 
 to tell me your name until the end of the day, please. It 
 is just a silly idea, but I will call you ' Ami.' I daresay 
 it is a great name you have got, and I would rather feel 
 that I don't want to know it too soon." 
 
 She had shown talent in the school where she had 
 started in Ireland, and had taken a scholarship and had 
 come to Paris to study, to venture unprepared and quite 
 wildly into the student life, to struggle on small means 
 and insufficient food uphill toward art. She displayed in 
 talking a touching confidence in herself and worship of 
 beauty, as well as a simple and loyal attitude toward life 
 
 266
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 267 
 
 in general. She occupied a furnished room near the 
 studio and, as she expressed it, "fished for herself." 
 She was the oldest of seven children, with a weight of 
 responsibility on herself. Her father's salary was ridic- 
 ulous, she told him, not enough to bring up one hungry 
 child well, much less half a dozen. 
 
 " I thought that I could support myself with my art/' 
 she told Fairfax, " and that I should soon be arrivee, 
 lancee, but to-day, when the criticism discouraged me and 
 I knew that I should have to write home for money 
 soon, well ... I'd not like to tell you what strange 
 fancies came." She lifted up her finger and pointed at 
 the river as it lay between its shores. " And now," she 
 glanced at him, " when you tell me, too, that I am no 
 good "at painting ! " 
 
 " I haven't said that," remonstrated Fairfax ; " but 
 don't let's talk about work now, what do you say? Let's 
 have a holiday." 
 
 They walked up the Palace over the cobbles of the 
 courtyard and paused to look back at the Route de Paris, 
 that Miss Nora Scarlet might thoroughly picture the 
 procession of the fish-wives and the march of the Paris 
 populace up to Versailles, where the people swept its 
 violent sea over the royal courts and the foam rose to 
 the windows where royal faces whitened against the 
 panes. Nora Scarlet and Fairfax wandered through the 
 great rooms, part of the tourist crowd. The handsome 
 man limped, a student's stoop across his shoulders, by the 
 side of the small blond girl with her student cape and 
 her soft hat, her hair like chrysanthemum petals. Fairfax 
 took occasion in the portrait room to tell her that she 
 looked like a Greuze. Nora Scarlet was an appreciative 
 sightseer. 
 
 " Oh, if I could only paint," she murmured, " if I 
 could only paint ! " and she clasped her woollen gloves 
 prayerfully before the portraits of the Filles de France. 
 But the Nattiers and the Fragonards mocked her, and the 
 green portfolio under Fairfax's arm mocked her still more. 
 Side by side, they penetrated into the little rooms where 
 a Queen lived, intrigued, loved, and played her part. 
 And Fairfax had his envies before Houdon's head of Marie 
 Antoinette.
 
 268 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly 
 deserted where they stood, for the day had grown colder 
 and the winter sunlight left early to give place to a long 
 still winter evening. Their footsteps made no sound on 
 the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped 
 to ask what kind of a woman the girl student was when 
 he spontaneously left his lonely seat in the restaurant 
 to take his place at her side, but everything she said to 
 him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that she 
 had come with him without thinking twice, and he 
 should have been touched by it. He drew her arm 
 within his as they passed the great fountain. The basin 
 was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human 
 lips. 
 
 "Now/' he said, "the time has come to talk of you 
 and what you want to do and can do, and how you can 
 do it." 
 
 " That's awfully kind." 
 
 " No, those are just the questions that I have to ask 
 myself every day and find on some days that I haven't 
 got the answer. It's a riddle, you know. We don't every 
 day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would never 
 go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find 
 out, and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better 
 than one at a riddle, aren't they ? " 
 
 " Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and 
 after a second she continued : " It's lonely in Paris for a 
 girl who doesn't want to go in for lots of things, and I 
 have been getting muddled. But the worst muddle is 
 pounds, shillings and pence " she laughed musically 
 " it's reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle 
 reduced a bit." 
 
 " You want to do portraits ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, I haven't an idea about anything else." 
 
 The trees above their heads made leafy bowers in 
 summer, but now between the fine bare branches, they 
 saw the delicate wintry sky, pale with the fading light of 
 what had been a rare January day. 
 
 " Suppose I get an order for you to paint a portrait 
 and you are paid in advance." 
 
 She stopped, holding him back by the arm, and 
 exclaimed, joyously
 
 269 
 
 " Oh, but you could not ! " 
 
 " Suppose that I can. If I do succeed and you paint 
 the portrait, will you do something for me ? " 
 
 She looked up at him quickly. He was much above 
 her. Nora Scarlet had seen Fairfax several times a week 
 for many months. She knew him as well as any person 
 can know another by sight she knew his clothes, the 
 way he wore them. It had been easy to study his face 
 attentively, for he was so absorbed in general that he was 
 unconscious of scrutiny. She had learned every one of 
 his features pretty well by heart. Solitary as she was, 
 without companions or friends except for her studio 
 mates, she had grown to think as women do of a man they 
 choose, to surround him with fancies and images. She 
 had' idealized this unknown artist, and her thoughts kept 
 her company, and he had become almost part of her life 
 already. She looked up at him now and blushed. He 
 put his hand down over hers lightly. 
 
 " I mean that when the portrait is finished, we will 
 have it criticized by the subject first, then by some one 
 in whom you have great confidence, and if you are 
 certain then that you have a vocation, we will see what 
 can be done some way will open up. There is always 
 sure to be a path toward the thing that is to be. But 
 if the criticism is unfavourable, I want you to promise 
 me to go back to England and to your people, and to give 
 up art as bravely as you can I mean, courageously, like 
 a good soldier who has fought well and lost the battle. 
 Perhaps," Fairfax said, smiling, " if I were not an artist 
 my advice would be worth less, but the place is too full of 
 half-successes. If you can't be at the top, don't fill up 
 the ranks. Get down as soon as you can and be another 
 kind of success." 
 
 The advice was sound and practical. She listened to 
 his agreeable voice, softened by the Southern accent. 
 She watched him as he talked, but his face was not 
 that of an adviser. It was charmingly personal and 
 his smile the sweetest she had ever seen. She 
 murmured 
 
 " You are awfully kind. I promise." 
 
 " Good," he exclaimed heartily, " you are a first-rate 
 sort ; however it turns out, you are plucky."
 
 270 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 The most delicious odours of moist earth, blessed with 
 the day's unexpected warmth, rose on the winter air. 
 Their footfalls were lost in the leaves. Far down at the 
 end of the alley they could see other strollers, but where 
 they stood they were quite alone. The excitement of the 
 unusual outing, the pleasure of companionship, brought 
 the colour to their cheeks, a light to their eyes. The 
 girl's helplessness, the human struggle so like to his own, 
 her admiration and her frankness, appealed to him greatly. 
 His late agitation, useless, hopeless, perilous moreover, 
 and which he felt he must overcome because it could 
 have neither issue nor satisfaction, made Fairfax turn 
 here for satisfaction and repose. They wandered slowly 
 down the alley, her hand within his arm, and he said, 
 looking down at her 
 
 " Meanwhile, you belong to me." 
 
 The words passed his lips before he realized what they 
 meant, or their importance. He did so as soon as he 
 spoke. He felt her start. She withdrew the hand from 
 his arm. He stopped and said 
 
 " Did I frighten you ? " He took her little hand. 
 
 " A little," Nora Scarlet said. Her eyes were round 
 and wide. 
 
 Antony held her hand, looking at her, trying to see a 
 deeper beauty in her face than was there, greater depths 
 in her eyes than they could contain, more of the woman to 
 fill his need and his loneliness. He realized how great 
 that loneliness was and how demanding. She seemed like 
 a child or a bird that he had caught ruthlessly. 
 
 " Didn't you drink just now to our friendship ? " 
 
 She nodded, bit her lips, smiled, and her humour 
 returned. 
 
 " Yes, I drank to our friendship." 
 
 "Well," he said, and hesitated, "well . . ." He drew 
 her a little toward him; she resisted faintly, and Fairfax 
 stopped and quickly kissed her, a feeling of shame in his 
 soul. He kissed her again, murmured something to her, 
 and she kissed him. Then she pushed him gently away, 
 her face crimson, her eyes full of tears. 
 
 " No, no," she murmured, " you shouldn't have done 
 it. It is too awful. It's unworthy. Ami," she gasped, 
 "do you know you are the first man I ever let do that?
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 271 
 
 Do you believe me ? " She was clinging to his hands, 
 half laughing, half sobbing, and the kiss was sweet, sweet, 
 and the moment was sweet. To one of them it was 
 eternal, and could never come in all her lifetime like that 
 again. 
 
 He stifled his self-reproach. He would have taken her 
 in his arms again, but she ran from him, swiftly, like the 
 bird set free. 
 
 "Wait," he called; "Nora Scarlet, I promise." He 
 hurried to her. "You forget I am a lame jackdaw." 
 
 Then she stood still. They were walking together, his 
 arm around her waist, when they came out at the alley's 
 end. Standing by a marble bust on its pedestal, quite 
 alone and meditative, as if she had just looked up, seen 
 something and nevertheless decided to wait, Fairfax saw 
 Mrs. Faversham.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 His first sensation, as he saw her, was as if a sudden 
 light had broken upon a soul's darkness which until this 
 moment had blinded him, oppressed him, condemned him ; 
 then there came a great revulsion against himself. Mrs. 
 Faversham was very pale, as white as the bust by whose 
 side she stood. She held out her hand, in its delicate 
 glove, and tried to greet him naturally. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Eainsf ord ? " 
 
 He was conscious of how kind she was, how womanly. 
 He had refused her invitation and flaunted in her sight 
 a vulgar pastoral. His cheeks were hot, his lips hardly 
 formed a greeting. This was the work he had offered 
 as an excuse to her when he had said that he could not 
 go to Versailles. " Then what is it to her ? " he thought ; 
 " she is engaged to be married to Cedersholm. What am 
 I or my vulgarities to her ? " There was a fresh revulsion. 
 
 "Will you let me present Miss Scarlet," he said 
 quietly, " Mrs. Faversham ? " 
 
 Mrs. Faversham, who had recovered herself, gave her 
 hand into the woollen glove of Nora Scarlet, and, looking 
 at the young girl, said that perhaps they had been 
 sketching. 
 
 " Not in January," replied Nora with perfect self- 
 possession. From the crown of Mrs. Faversham's fur 
 hat to the lady's shoes, the girl's honest eyes had taken 
 in her elegance and her grace. " We have been walking a 
 bit after Paris." 
 
 Fairfax felt as though he had been separated from this 
 lady for a long time, as though he had just come back, 
 after a voyage whose details were tiresome. She seemed 
 too divine to him and at once cruelly near and cruelly 
 removed, in her dark dress, her small walking hat with a 
 
 272
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 273 
 
 spray of mistletoe shining against the fur, her faultless 
 shoes, her face so sweet and high-bred under her veil, her 
 aloofness from everything with which he came in contact, 
 her freedom from care and struggle, from temptation, 
 from the sordidness of which he had long been a part. 
 He suffered horribly; short as the moment was, the 
 acuteness of its sensations comprised for him a miserable 
 eternity. 
 
 " I have my carriage here, Mr. Rainsford. Will you 
 not let me drive you both back to Paris ? " 
 
 He wanted nothing but to go with her then, any way, 
 the farther the better, and for ever. It came upon him 
 suddenly, and he knew it. He refused, of course, angry 
 to be obliged to do so, angrier still at what he was sure 
 she would think was the reason for his doing so. She 
 bade them both good-bye, now thoroughly mistress of 
 herself, and reminded him that she would expect him the 
 next day at three. She asked Miss Scarlet many questions 
 about her work and the schools, as they walked along a 
 little together, before Mrs. Faversham took the path that 
 led to the gate where her carriage waited. 
 
 When they were together again alone, Fairfax and 
 his companion, in the tram, he felt as though he had cut 
 himself off once again, by his folly, from everything 
 desirable in the world. The night was cold. He did not 
 realize how silent he was or how silent she was. When 
 they had nearly reached Paris, Miss Scarlet said 
 
 " Is it her portrait you thought I might get to paint ? " 
 
 The question startled him, the voice as well. It was 
 like being spoken to suddenly by a perfect stranger. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " she is wonderfully generous 
 and open-hearted. I am sure that she would give you 
 an order." 
 
 "Please don't bother/' said the girl proudly. "I 
 would not take the order." 
 
 Her tone was so curt and short that it brought Fairfax 
 back to realities. 
 
 "Why, pray, don't you find her paintable?" he 
 asked. 
 
 The girl's voice was contemptuous. " I don't know. 
 I didn't look at her with that idea."
 
 274 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Fairfax had nothing left him but his self-reproach, his 
 humiliation, his sense of degradation, though God knows 
 the outing was innocent enough! The Thing had hap- 
 pened. The Event had transpired. The veil had been 
 drawn away from his heart when he saw her there in the 
 park and spoke to her. The idea that she must think 
 him light and vulgar-minded, an ordinary Bohemian, 
 amusing himself as is the fashion in the Latin Quarter, 
 was unbearable to him. He would have given his right 
 hand to have been alone in the park and to have met her 
 alone. Under the spell of his suffering, he said cruelly 
 to the girl whom he had so wantonly captured 
 
 " If you won't let me help you in my way, I'm afraid 
 I can't help you at all." 
 
 And she returned, controlling her voice : " No, I am 
 afraid you cannot help me." 
 
 He was unconscious of her until they reached the 
 centre of Paris and he found himself in the street by her 
 side, and they were crossing the Pond des Arts on foot. 
 The lamps were lit. The tumult and stir of the city was 
 around them, the odour of fires and the perfume of the 
 city pungent to their nostrils. They walked along silently, 
 and Fairfax asked her suddenly 
 
 " Where shall I take you ? Where do you live ? " and 
 realized as he spoke how little he knew of her, how unknown 
 they were to each other, and yet what a factor she had 
 been in his emotional life. He had held her in his armi 
 and kissed her not three hours ago. 
 
 She put her hand out to him. " We will say good-bye 
 here," she said evenly. " I can go home alone." 
 
 " Oh no," he objected, but he saw by her face that 
 in her, too, a revulsion had taken place, perhaps stronger 
 than his own. He was ashamed and annoyed. He put 
 out his hand and hers just touched it. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, " for the excursion, and would 
 you please give me my portfolio ? " 
 
 He handed it to her. Then quite impulsively : " I 
 don't want to -part from you like this. Why should I? 
 Let me take you home, won't you ? " 
 
 He wanted to say, " Forgive me," but she had 
 possessed herself of her little sketches, the poor, inadequate 
 work of fruitless months. She turned and was gone
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 275 
 
 almost running up the quays, as she had run before him 
 down the alley of Versailles. He saw her go with great 
 relief, and, when the little brown figure was lost in the 
 Paris multitude, he turned and limped home to the 
 studio in the Quais.
 
 HE did not go to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne at the 
 appointed hour, and was so ungracious as not to send her 
 any word. He took the time for his own work, and from 
 thence on devoted himself to finishing the portrait of his 
 mother. Meanwhile, Dearborn, enveloped in smoke, 
 dug into the mine of his imagination and brought up 
 treasures and nearly completed his play. He recited from 
 it copiously, read it aloud, wept at certain scenes which 
 he assured Tony would never be as sad to any spectator 
 as they were to him. 
 
 " I wrote them on an empty stomach," he said. 
 
 Fairfax, meanwhile, finished his statuette and decided 
 to send it to an exhibition of sculpture to be opened in 
 the Rue de Sevres. He had bitterly renounced his worldly 
 life, and was shortly obliged to pawn his dress suit, and, 
 indeed, anything else that the young men could gather 
 together went to the Mont de Piete, and once more the 
 comrades were nearly destitute and were really clad and 
 fed by their visions and their dreams. 
 
 "You see," he said one day, shortly, to Dearborn, 
 when the silence between the quays and the Avenue du 
 Bois de Boulogne had grown intolerable to him, "you 
 see how indifferent she is. She doesn't know what has 
 become of me. For all she knows I may be drowned in 
 the Seine." 
 
 "Or imprisoned for debt," said Dearborn, cheerfully, 
 " that's more likely. The tailor doesn't believe you have 
 gone to London, Fairfax. Try a more congenial place, 
 Tony. Let it be Monte Carlo next time every one goes 
 there sooner or later." 
 
 When he came back from Versailles he told Dearborn 
 nothing about his escapade in detail, simply mentioning 
 
 276
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 277 
 
 the fact that he had taken out a little girl to spend the 
 day in the woods and that she had bored him in the end, 
 and that he had had the misfortune to meet Mrs. Faver- 
 sham unexpectedly. 
 
 Dearborn was one of those subtle spirits who do not 
 need to be told everything. He rated Antony for 
 playing what he called an ungallant part to the little 
 Bohemian. 
 
 "You say her hair was like chrysanthemums and that 
 she had violet eyes? Why, she is a priceless treasure, 
 Tony ! How could you desert her ? " 
 
 And several times Dearborn tried to extract some- 
 thing more about the deserted little girl from his friend, 
 but it was in vain. 
 
 "T am sorry," Dearborn said. "We need women, 
 Tony we need to see the flutter of their dresses, to 
 watch them come and go in this little room. By Jove, 
 I often want to open the door and invite up the concierge, 
 the concierge's wife, his aunt * and children three,' or 
 any, or all of Paris who would come and infuse new life 
 into us. Anything that is real flesh and blood, to chase 
 for a moment visions and dreams away and let us touch 
 real hands." 
 
 " You don't go out enough, old man." 
 
 " And you went out too much, Fairfax. It's not going 
 out I want some one to come in. I want to see the 
 studio peopled. You have grown so morose and I have 
 become such a navvy that our points of view will be false 
 the first thing we know." 
 
 The snow had been falling lightly. There was a little 
 fringe of it along the sill, and toward sunset it had turned 
 cold, and under the winter fog the sun hung like an 
 orange ball behind a veil. The Seine flowed tawny and 
 yellow under their eyes, as they stood together talking 
 in the window. 
 
 Fairfax was in his painting clothes, the playwright in 
 his beloved dressing-gown that Fairfax had not the heart 
 to pawn for coffee and coal. There was a sound of foot- 
 steps on the stairs without. 
 
 " It's the fellows coming to take my statuette," said 
 Fairfax. 
 
 "It's the tailor, the bootmaker and the shirtmaker,"
 
 278 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 said Dearborn. "Go behind the screen, Tony run to 
 Monte Carlo." 
 
 There was a tap at the door and a cheerful voice 
 called 
 
 " Mr. Rainsford, c'est moi." 
 
 " It is Potowski. I will have to let him in, Bob. Here's 
 all Paris for you. You wanted it." 
 
 He opened the door for Count Potowski. 
 
 The Polish singer came quickly in, his silk hat and his 
 cane in his hand. He looked around brightly. 
 
 " You don't hide from me," he said. " I have a fatal 
 grasp when I take hold. You never call on me, Monsieur 
 so I call on you. Guerrea ! which means in Polish 
 what 'altro' means in Italian, 'Doch' in German, 
 ' Voila ' in French, and in unenthusiastic English, nothing 
 at all." 
 
 Fairfax presented the Count to Dearborn, who beamed 
 on him, amused, and Potowski glanced at the cold, 
 cheerless Bohemia. It was meagre. It was cold. Priva- 
 tion was apparent. The place was not without a charm, 
 and it had distinction. There were the evidences of 
 intense work, of devotion to the ideal. There were the 
 evidences of good taste and good breeding. The few 
 bits of furniture were old and had been bought for a song, 
 but selected with judgment. Fairfax's statuette waited 
 on its pedestal to be carried away in the winter light, 
 softened and subdued by mist, Mrs. Fairfax read in her 
 chair. Dearborn's table, strewn with his papers and 
 books, told of hours spent at a beloved labour. There 
 was nothing material to attract no studio properties or 
 decorations to speak of. Two long divans were placed 
 against a wall of agreeable colour. There was nothing 
 but the spirit of art and work, and the spirit of youth as 
 well, but Potowski was delighted. He pointed to the 
 statuette. 
 
 " This," he said, " is the lovely lady with whom you 
 have been shut up all these days. It is charming, 
 Monsieur." 
 
 " It is a study of my mother as I remember her." 
 
 " I salute it," said Potowski, making a little inclination. 
 "I salute you. It is beautiful." He put his hand on 
 Fairfax's arm. "You do my wife. You do the
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 279 
 
 Contessa," said Potowski, "the same. I adore it. It 
 looks my wife. It might be her, Monsieur. But all 
 beauty is alike, is not it ? One lovely woman is all women. 
 Are you not of my opinion?" 
 
 He swam toward Dearborn who was fascinated by 
 Potowski's overcoat lined with fur, and with the huge 
 fur collar, with his patent shoes with their white tops, 
 with his bright waistcoat, his single eyeglass, his shining 
 silk hat and, above all, by the gay foreign face, its waxed 
 moustache and its sparkling dark eyes. 
 
 Dearborn wrapped his dressing-gown modestly around 
 him to conceal his shirtless, collarless condition. Running 
 his hands through dishevelled red hair, he responded 
 
 " No, I don't agree with you. I guess your feminine 
 psychology is at fault there, Count." 
 
 " Rreally not," murmured the Count, looking at him 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Mr. Dearborn is a playwright," said Antony. " He 
 is a great student of character." 
 
 Potowski waved his hand in its light glove. " You 
 write plays, Monsieur? You shall write me a libretto. 
 I have been looking for ever for some one to write the 
 words for a hopera I am making." 
 
 Dearborn nodded. " Far from being all alike, I don't 
 think that there have been two women alike since 
 Eve." 
 
 "Rreally!" 
 
 Potowski looked at the red-headed man as if he won- 
 dered whether he had met and known all women. 
 
 " You find it so, Monsieur ? Now I have been 
 married three times. Every one of them were loveb 
 women. I find them all the same." 
 
 " You must have a very adaptable, assimilating and 
 modifying nature," said Dearborn, smiling. 
 
 "Modifying? What is that?" asked the Pole 
 sweetly. 
 
 Neither of the young men made excuses for the icy 
 cold room. They were too proud. They had nothing 
 to offer Potowski, not even a cigarette, but the Pole 
 forced his cigar-case upon them, telling them that he 
 made his cigarettes with a machine by the thousand. 
 
 " My wife, Contessa Potowski, makes them, I mean,
 
 280 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 I do myself the pleasure to send you a box. They're 
 contraband. You will be arrested if the police knows so." 
 
 " That/' said Dearborn, " would really disappoint the 
 tailor. I think he would like to get in his own score first. 
 But I would rather go to prison as a contrabander than as 
 a debtor." 
 
 They sat on the sofa together and smoked, their 
 breath white in the cold room. But the amiable Potowski 
 beamed on them, and Antony saw Dearborn's delight 
 at the outside element. And Dearborn sketched his 
 scenario, the colour hot in his thin cheeks, and Potowski, 
 rubbing his hands to warm them,, hummed airs from his 
 own opera in a heavenly voice, and the voice and the 
 enthusiasm magnetized poor Dearborn, carried out of 
 his rut, and before he knew it he had promised to write a 
 libretto for " Fiametta." 
 
 Whilst they talked the porters came and took away 
 the statuette of Mrs. Fairfax, and Potowski said 
 
 " It was like seeing they carry away my wife." And, 
 when they had gone, Antony lighted the candles and 
 Potowski rose and cried, as though the idea had just come 
 to him : " Guerrea ! My friends, I am alone to-night. 
 My wife has gone to sing in Brussels. I implore you to 
 come out to dinner with me I know not where." He 
 glanced at the sculptor and playwright, as they stood in 
 the candle light. He had only seen Fairfax a well-dressed 
 visitor at Mrs. Faversham's entertainments. On him 
 now a different light fell. In his working clothes, there 
 was nothing poverty-stricken about him, but the marks 
 of need were unmistakably in the environment. He 
 spoke to Dearborn, but he looked at Fairfax. " I have 
 grown very fond of him. I love to speak my thoughts at 
 him. We don't always agree, but we are always good for 
 each other. I have not seen him for some time. I thought 
 he go away." 
 
 Dearborn smiled. " He was just going to Monte 
 Carlo," he murmured. 
 
 Potowski, who did not hear, went on: "We will go 
 and eat in some restaurant on this side of the river. I am 
 tired of the Cafe de Paris. We will see a play afterwards. 
 There is f La Dame aux Camelias ' with the divine Sarah. 
 We laugh at dinner and we shall go and sob at La Dame
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 281 
 
 aux Camelias. I like a happy weeping now and then/' 
 He swam toward them affably and appealingly. " I 
 don't dress. I go as I am." 
 
 Dearborn grasped one of the yellow-gloved hands and 
 shook it. 
 
 " Hang it all ! I'm going, Tony. There are two pair 
 of boots, anyhow. I haven't been to a play," he laughed 
 excitedly, " since I was a child. Hustle, Tony, we will 
 toss up for the best suit of clothes." 
 
 The drama of Dumas gave Antony a beautiful escape 
 from reality. La Dame aux Camelias disenchanted him 
 from his own problems for the time. In the Count's box 
 he sat in the background and fed his eyes and his ears 
 with -the romantic and ardent art of the Second Empire. 
 He found the piece great, mobile, and palpitating, and he 
 was not ashamed. The divine Sarah and Marguerite 
 Gautier died before his eyes, and out of the ashes woman- 
 hood arose and called to him, as the Venus de Milo had 
 called to him down the long gallery, and distractions he 
 had known seemed soulless and unreal shapes. He 
 worshipped Dumas in his creation. 
 
 " Eainsf ord/' whispered Potowski, laying his hand on 
 Antony's knee, "what do you t'ink, my friend?" The 
 tears were raining down his mobile face; he sighed. 
 " Arrt" he said in his mellow whisper, " is only the 
 expression of the feeling, the beautiful expression of the 
 feeling. That is the meaning of all arrt" 
 
 The big red curtain fell slowly and the three men, poet, 
 singer and sculptor, kept their seats as though still under 
 the spell of Dumas and unable to break it. 
 
 " Tony," said Dearborn, as they went out together, " I 
 am going to burn up all four acts."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE middle of January arrived, and he thought Cedersholm 
 would have come by that time and supposed that they 
 would be off for Rome. 
 
 The study of his mother was accepted by the jury for 
 the exhibition in the Rue de Sevres, and Fairfax went 
 on the opening day, saw his name in the catalogue, and 
 his study on the red pedestal made a dark mellow note 
 amongst the marbles. He stood with the crowd and 
 listened with beating heart to the comments of the public. 
 He watched the long-haired Bohemians and the worldly 
 people, the Philistine and the elite as they surged, a little 
 sea of criticism, approval, praise and blame, through the 
 rooms. 
 
 " Pas mal, c,a." " Here is a study that is worth 
 looking at." " By whom is this ? " 
 
 And each time that he heard his name read aloud 
 Thomas Rainsford he was jealous of it for Antony. 
 It seemed a sacrilege, a treachery. He wandered about, 
 looking at the other exhibits, but could not keep away 
 from his own, and came back timidly, happily, to stand 
 by the figure of his mother in her chair. There was much 
 peace in the little work of art, much repose. He seemed 
 to see himself again a boy, as he had been that day when 
 she asked for the cherries and he had run off to climb for 
 them and had gone limping ever since. She had sat 
 languidly with her book that day, as she sat now, im- 
 mortalized by her son in clay. 
 
 Some one came up and touched his arm. " Bonjour, 
 Rainsford." It was Barye, his chief. He had been look- 
 ing at the group behind the sculptor. He said briefly: 
 " Je vous felicite, monsieur." He smiled on his iourney- 
 
 282
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 283 
 
 man from under shaggy brows. "They will talk about 
 you in the Figaro. C'est exquis." 
 
 Fairfax thanked him and watched Barye's face as the 
 master scrutinized and went around the little figure. He 
 put out his hand to Fairfax. 
 
 " Come and see me to-morrow. I want to talk to you." 
 
 Fairfax answered that he would be sure to come, 
 just as though he were not modelling at the studio for 
 ten francs a day. He had been careful all along not to 
 repeat his error of years before. He had avoided person- 
 alities with his master, as he toiled like a common day- 
 labourer, content to make his living and to display no 
 originality ; but now he felt a sense of fellowship with the 
 great Frenchman and walked along by Barye's side to the 
 door^roud to be so distinguished. He glanced over the 
 crowd in the hope of seeing Her, but instead, walking 
 through the rooms, his eyeglass in his eye, the little red 
 badge of the Legion of Honour in his coat, he saw 
 Cedersholm. 
 
 The following day, when he went to the exhibition, the 
 man at the door handed a catalogue to Fairfax and pointed 
 to No. 102, against which was the word " Sold." His 
 price had been unpretentious. 
 
 " Moreover," said the man, " No. 102 will certainly have 
 a medal." 
 
 Fairfax, his hands in his empty pockets, was less 
 impressed by that prognostication than by the fact that 
 there was money for him somewhere. The man opened 
 the desk and handed Fairfax an envelope with five 
 hundred francs in it. 
 
 " Who was the purchaser ? " Fairfax looked at the 
 receipt he was given to sign and read : " Sold to Mr. 
 Cedersholm." 
 
 " Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, " ga, non ! " 
 
 He was assured, however, that it was the American 
 sculptor and no other. On his way home he reflected, 
 " She sent him to purchase it." And the five hundred 
 francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself 
 a fool and asked what possible interest she could still 
 have in Thomas Rainsford, whose news she had not taken 
 in four weeks. And also, he reflected, that so far as 
 Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had nothing
 
 284 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 to do with Antony Fairfax. " He merely admired my 
 work," he reflected bitterly. " He has seemed always 
 singularly to admire it." 
 
 He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of 
 pawn, left Dearborn what he wanted, and was relieved 
 when the last sou of the money was gone. 
 
 " I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, " when I shall 
 ever have any ' serious money.' '' And with sudden tender- 
 ness he thought of Bella. 
 
 Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent 
 suit of clothes, displayed his trousers and said 
 
 " I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and 
 stretched them." They hung loose on him. 
 
 Fairfax laughed. " You have only shrunk, Bob, 
 that's all. You need feeding up." 
 
 The studio had undergone a slight transformation, 
 which the young men had been forced to accede to. A 
 grand piano covered with a bright bit of brocade stood 
 in the centre of the studio, a huge armchair, with a 
 revolving smoking-table, by its side. The chair was for 
 Dearborn to loll in and dream in whilst Potowski played 
 and sang at the piano. Dearborn was thus supposed to 
 work the libretto for " Fiametta." 
 
 Potowski, who came in at all hours, charmed the 
 very walls with his voice, sang and improvised; Fairfax 
 worked on the study he was making for Barye, and 
 Dearborn, in the big chair, swathed in his wrapper, made 
 notes, or more often fell serenely to sleep, for he worked 
 all night on his own beloved drama, and if it had not been 
 for Potowski he would have slept nearly all day. The 
 Pole, at present, had gone to Belgium to fetch his wife, 
 who had been away for several weeks. 
 
 When there was a knock on the door on this afternoon, 
 the young men, used to unexpected visitors, cried out 
 
 " Come in entrez done ! " 
 
 But there was the murmur of a woman's voice without, 
 and Fairfax, his sculpting tools in his hands, opened the 
 door. It was Mrs. Faversham. 
 
 He stood for a dazed second unable even to welcome 
 her. Dearborn sprang up in embarrassment and amuse- 
 ment. Mrs. Faversham herself was not embarrassed. 
 
 " Is not Potowski here ? " shaking hands with Antony.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 285 
 
 " I had expected to meet him. Didn't he tell you that 
 I was coming ? I understood that you expected me/' 
 
 Fairfax shut the door behind her. " You are more 
 than welcome. This is my friend, Mr. Dearborn. You 
 may have heard Potowski speak of him." 
 
 She shook hands with the red-haired playwright, 
 whom she captivated at once by her cordiality and her 
 sweet smile. Of course she had heard of him and the 
 libretto. Potowski had given her to understand that she 
 might hear the overture of " Fiametta." 
 
 The young men exchanged glances and neither of 
 them told her that Potowski was in Belgium. Dearborn 
 rolled the chair toward her and waved to it gracefully. 
 
 " This is the chair of the muses, Mrs. Faversham, and 
 not one of them has been good enough to sit in it before 
 now." 
 
 She laughed and sat down, and Fairfax looked at her 
 with joy. 
 
 "We must give Mrs. Faversham some tea," said 
 Dearborn, " and if you will excuse me while we wait for 
 Potowski, I will pop out and get some milk and you boil 
 the tea-kettle." 
 
 He took his hat and cape and ran out, leaving them 
 alone. 
 
 Mrs. Faversham looked at the sculptor in his velveteen 
 working clothes, the background of his workshop, its 
 disorder and its poverty around him. 
 
 " How nice it is here," she said. " I don't wonder you 
 are a hermit." 
 
 " Oh," he exclaimed, " don't compliment this desola- 
 tion." 
 
 She interrupted him. " I think it is charming. You 
 feel the atmosphere of living and of work. You seem 
 to see things here that are not visible in rooms where 
 nothing is accomplished." 
 
 He sat down beside her. " Are there such rooms ? " 
 he asked. " I don't believe it. The most thrilling 
 dramas take place, don't they, in the most commonplace 
 settings ? " 
 
 As though she feared that Dearborn would come back, 
 she said quickly 
 
 " 1 don't know why you should have been so unkind.
 
 286 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 I have heard nothing of you for weeks, do you know, 
 excepting through Potowski. It wasn't kind, was it ? " 
 
 "I was rude and ungrateful, but I could not do 
 otherwise." 
 
 She bent forward to him as he sat on the divan. " I 
 wonder why ? " she asked. " Were we not friends ? 
 Could you not have trusted me? Do you think me so 
 narrow and conventional so stupid ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, and he smiled a little, thinking 
 of Nora Scarlet. " It is not quite what you think." 
 
 He was angry with her, with the facts of their existence, 
 with her great fortune, and her engagement to the man he 
 despised above all others, his own incognito and the fact 
 that she had sent Cedersholm to buy his study, and that 
 he could not express to her, without insult, his feelings or 
 tell her frankly who he was. 
 
 " You were not kind, Mr. Rainsf ord." 
 
 He reflected that she thought him the lover of a Latin 
 Quarter student, if she thought at all, which she probably 
 did not. Without humility he confessed 
 
 " Yes, I have been very rude indeed." He wiped his 
 clay-covered hands slowly, each finger separately, his 
 eyes bent. He rose abruptly. "Would you care to look 
 at a study I am making for Barye ? " He drew off the 
 cloths from the clay he was engaged in modelling. She 
 only glanced at the group and he asked her, almost roughly : 
 "Why did you buy by proxy my little study in the 
 exhibition? Why did you ask Cedersholm to do 
 so?" 
 
 Mrs. Faversham looked at him in frank surprise. 
 "Your study in the exhibition? I knew nothing of it. 
 I did not know you had exhibited. I have been ill for a 
 fortnight, and have not seen a paper or heard a bit of 
 news." 
 
 He was softened. His emotions violently contradicted 
 themselves, and he saw now that she had grown a little 
 thinner and looked pale. 
 
 "Have you been ill? What a boor you must think 
 me never to have returned ! " 
 
 She was standing close to the pedestal and rested her 
 hand on the support near his wooden tools. She wore 
 a beautiful grey dress, such a one as only certain Parisian
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 287 
 
 hands can create. It fitted her to perfection, displaying 
 her shape, and, where the fur opened at the neck, amongst 
 the lace he saw the gleaming and flashing of a jewel whose 
 value would have made a man rich. Already the air was 
 sweet with the fragrance of the scent she used. She had 
 been in grey when he had first seen her on the day of the 
 unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand 
 across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, 
 like a mist, was still between them. He put his hand down 
 over hers on the pedestal. 
 
 " I love you/ 7 he said very low. " That is the matter. 
 That is the trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. 
 I dare love you. I am perfectly penniless and I am glad 
 of if I want to owe everything to my art, to climb 
 through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. 
 I am proud of my poverty and of my emancipation from 
 everything that others think is necessary to happiness. 
 I am rude. I cannot help it. I shall never see you again. 
 I ought not to speak to you in my barren room. I know 
 that you are not free and that you are going to be married, 
 but you must hear once what I have to tell you. I love 
 you. ... I love you." 
 
 She was as motionless as the grey study. He might 
 himself have made and carved " the woman in her 
 entirety," for she stood motionless before him. 
 
 "Tell Cedersholm," he said bitterly, "tell him that 
 a poor sculptor, a struggler who lives to climb beyond him, 
 who will some day climb beyond him, loves you." 
 
 The arrogance and pride of his words and her immo- 
 bility affected him more than a reproof or even speech. 
 He took her in his arms, and she was neither marble nor 
 clay, but a woman there. 
 
 " Tell him," he murmured close to her cheek, " that 
 I have kissed you and held you." 
 
 And here she said : " Hush ! " almost inaudibly, and 
 released herself. She was trembling. She put her hands 
 to her eyes. "I shall tell him nothing. He is nothing 
 to me. I sent him away when he first came, a fortnight 
 ago. I shall never see Cedersholm again." 
 
 " What ! " cried Tony, looking at her in rapture, 
 "what, you are free?" At his heart there was triumph, 
 excitement, wonder, all blending with the bigger emotion.
 
 288 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He heard himself ask her eagerly: "Why, why did you 
 do this?" 
 
 There were tears on her eyelids. 
 
 His face flushing, his eyes illumined, he looked down 
 on her and lifted her face to him in both his hands. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I think you know," she murmured, her lips trembling. 
 
 He gave a cry, and as he was about again to embrace 
 her they heard Dearborn's step upon the stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Faversham was in the window looking out upon 
 Paris, and Fairfax was modelling on his study when the 
 playwright came in with a can of milk, some madeleines 
 and a pot of jam. 
 
 After she had gone he wanted to escape and be alone, 
 but Dearborn chatted, pacing the studio, whilst Fairfax 
 dressed and shaved, praising the visitor. 
 
 " She's a great lady, Tony. What breeding and 
 race ! And she's not what the books call ' indifferent ' to 
 you." 
 
 " Go to the devil, Dearborn ! " 
 
 Dearborn went to work instead, not to lose the 
 inspiration of the lovely woman. He began a new scene, 
 and dressed his character in dove grey with silver fox 
 at her throat.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FAIRFAX, at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, found 
 instead of the entrance he had expected, a note for him. 
 
 " I "cannot see you to-night. Be generous, under- 
 stand me. Mr. Cedersholm leaves for Eussia to-morrow, 
 he has asked me as a last favour to let him see me. I have 
 done him so much wrong that I cannot refuse him. Come 
 early to-morrow morning, and we will walk in the Bois 
 together. I am yours, 
 
 "MARY." 
 
 He read the letter before the footman, and the "yours, 
 Mary " made his heart 'bound and his throat contract. 
 He walked toward the Champs Elysees slowly, thinking. 
 Cedersholm sailed to-morrow, away from France. He was 
 sent away beaten, bruised, conquered. He must have 
 loved her. No man could help it. Was this the beginning 
 of Fairfax's triumph? Well, he could not help it he 
 was glad. Cedersholm had stolen his fire, the labour of 
 his youth, and now he would not have been human if 
 there had not been a thrill through him that the conqueror 
 knows. He could spare him this farewell evening with 
 the woman who signed herself " I am yours, Mary/' 
 
 " Vade in Pace," he murmured. 
 
 Then the vision of the woman rose more poignant than 
 anything else, and he saw her as she had stood under his 
 hands, the tears in her eyes, and the fire and pallor of 
 passion on her face. 
 
 What should he do now? Marry her, of course. He 
 would be married, then, twice at thirty. He shook his 
 broad shoulders as though instinctively he chafed under 
 the sudden adjusting to them of a burden. He limped 
 
 289
 
 290 FAIEFAX AND HIS PKIDE 
 
 out into the Champs Elysees, under the rows of light 
 where the lamps were like illumined oranges. The 
 vehicles twinkled by like fire-flies in the mist. Before 
 him was the Palais de 1'Industrie and back of it stretched 
 the Champ de Mars and Napoleon's tomb. The freedom 
 of the night and the hour was sweet to him; and he 
 dreamed as he limped slowly down the Avenue under the 
 leafless trees. Probably wisdom would tell him that, if 
 he married now, it would be the end of his career. Love 
 was an inspiration, a sharp impelling power to art, but 
 marriage, a home, another household, another hearth and 
 family, beautiful as the picture was, seemed to him, even 
 bright and keen as was his passion, to be captivity. And 
 the memory of Albany came back to him, the cold winter 
 months, the days on the engine, the blizzards against the 
 tenement panes, household cares, small and petty, the 
 buying of coal and food, and the constant duties which 
 no man can shrink from and be a man, and which fret the 
 free spirit of the creator. Moreover, the anguish of those 
 days returned, biting his very entrails at the remembrance 
 of his griefs, his remorse, his regrets. Molly by the study 
 light, patient and wifely, rose before his eyes. There was 
 his wife, and she seemed holy and stainless, set apart for 
 that position and very perfect. .He saw her lying pale 
 and cold, beautiful as marble, with the little swathed 
 form on her bosom, which had given and never nourished. 
 He saw them both his wife and child. Can a man begin 
 over again? Can he create anew, perfectly anew, the 
 same vision? He saw her go through the open door, 
 holding it wide for him. So she should hold it at the last. 
 He could give her this. He had defrauded her of so much. 
 He could give to her to eternity a certain faithfulness. 
 
 He was exalted. He walked freely, with his head 
 uplifted. It was a misty evening and the mists blew 
 about him as he limped along in his student's cape, his 
 spirit communing with his ideals and with his dead. 
 Before, his visions took form and floated down the Avenue. 
 Now they seemed unearthly, without any stain of human 
 desire, without any worldly tarnish. He must be free. 
 The latitude of his life must be unbounded by any human 
 law, otherwise he would never attain. The flying forms 
 were sexless and his eyes pursued them like a worshipper.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 291 
 
 They were angelic. For the moment he had emancipated 
 himself from passion. 
 
 He reached the Place de la Concorde. It was ten 
 o'clock. He could not go home to be questioned by 
 Dearborn indeed, he could not have stood a companion. 
 He called a cab and told the man to drive him up to the 
 Bois de Boulogne, and they rolled slowly up the Avenue 
 down which he had just come. But in what position did 
 he stand toward Mary Faversham? She had refused 
 Cedersholm because she loved him and he loved her 
 more than he ever could love, more than he ever had 
 loved. A cab passed him in which two forms were 
 enlaced. The figures of two lovers blotted in the dark- 
 ness_. v Along the alleys, under the winter trees, every now 
 and then he saw other lovers walking arm-in-arm, even 
 in winter warmed by the eternal fire. He touched his 
 pocket where her note lay and his emotions stirred afresh. 
 
 He dreamed of her. 
 
 He had been tortured day by day, these weeks, by 
 jealousy of Cedersholm, and this helped him on in his 
 sentimental progress. They passed the street, which a 
 moment before he had taken from her house, to come out 
 upon the Champs Elysees. They rolled into the Bois, 
 under the damp darkness and the night, and the forest 
 odours came to him through the window of the cab. 
 She would have to wait until he was rich and famous. 
 As far as her fortune was concerned, if she loved him she 
 could give it to the poor. He could tell her how to use 
 it. She should never spend a cent of it on herself. He 
 must be able to suffice for her and for him. Rich or poor, 
 the woman who married him would have to take him as 
 he was. On the lake the mists blew over the water. They 
 lay white as spirits among the trees. Everything about 
 the dark and silent night was beautiful to him, made 
 beautiful by the sacred warfare in his own mind.. Above 
 all came the human eagerness to see her again, to touch 
 her again, to tell his love, to hear her say what Dearborn's 
 coming had prevented. And he would see her to-morrow 
 morning. It was profanity to walk in these woods with- 
 out her. 
 
 "Go back," he called to the coachman, "go back 
 
 quietly to the Quais."
 
 292 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 He hoped that he should be able to sleep and that the 
 next day would come quickly. He became ardent and 
 devoted as he dreamed, and all the way back his heart 
 ached for her. 
 
 When he entered the studio and called Dearborn he 
 received no response. There was a note from the play- 
 wright on the table he would not be back until the 
 next morning. 
 
 Fairfax, his hand under his pillow, crushed her letter, 
 and the words: "I am yours, Mary," flushed his palm 
 and his cheek. 
 
 He had been awake since dawn, fire in his blood and 
 heart animating his brain and stimulating his creative 
 power. In the early light he had seated himself to make 
 a few sketches, drawing little exquisite studies of her, 
 and the face on the paper was ideal, irritatingly so. The 
 chin and the cheek was young and soft, too youthful for 
 Mrs. Faversham. It suggested Bella. 
 
 When he went to see her that afternoon, for the first 
 time he was shown upstairs. Each step was sacred to 
 him as he mounted to the part of the house in which she 
 lived her intimate life. The stairs were marble, covered 
 by thick rugs; the iron balustrade had been brought 
 from a chateau in the days of the Revolution. Along 
 the wall at his side hung splendid tapestries, whose colours 
 would have delighted him at another time. But his eyes 
 now were blinded to material things. His soul, heart 
 and nature were aflame, and he walked on air. When 
 he was shown into a small room, Mrs. Faversham's own 
 sitting-room, his agitation was so great that he seemed 
 to walk through a mist. 
 
 She was not there. The day was fresh and the wood 
 fire burning across the andirons called to him with a 
 friendly voice. The objects by which she surrounded 
 herself represented a fortune; the clock before him, 
 which marked the hour in which he first came to see his 
 love, had belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it beamed 
 on the lover from its wise old clever face, crystal water 
 fell noiselessly, as the minutes passed, from a little golden 
 mill over which watched two Loves like millers. There 
 were her books on the table, bound with art and taste.
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 293 
 
 There were her writing things on her desk, and a half- 
 finished letter on the blotter. There was her " chaise- 
 longue " with its protective pillows, its sable cover, and 
 between the lace curtains Antony could see the trees of 
 the park. On the footstool a Pekinese dog sat looking 
 at him malevolently. It lifted its fluffy body daintily and 
 raised its impertinent little face to the visitor. Then a 
 door opened and she came in murmuring his name. 
 Antony, seeing her through a mist of love which had not 
 yet cleared, took her in his arms, calling her " Mary, 
 Mary ! " He felt the form and shape of her in his arms. 
 As dream women had never given themselves to him, so 
 she seemed to yield. 
 
 ^ r hen they sat side by side on the little sofa the 
 Pekinese dog jumped up and sat between them. She 
 caressed it with one hand, laying the other on Antony's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I must tell you my life," he said, and his sight 
 cleared as he spoke, and he saw her face transformed by 
 its emotion, her eyes adoring and beautiful, her lips 
 parted as if the breath of life he had given to her left her 
 wondering still. 
 
 " Don't tell me of anything to-day." 
 
 He took the hand that lay on his shoulder and raised it. 
 " I must tell you now." 
 
 " I ask for nothing, Antony. What does the past 
 matter ? " She bent forward and kissed him on his eyes. 
 " I would like to think they had never looked at anything 
 before to-day." 
 
 He smiled. " But they have looked hard at many 
 things, Mary. They will always look deeply, and I want 
 you to look back with me." 
 
 She sighed. " Then, forward with me." The 
 Pekinese dog sprang into her lap. " Go on," she said 
 docilely ; " but I am so divinely happy ! Why should we 
 think of anything else ? " 
 
 He brushed away the mist that threatened again to 
 cloud his vision. He took ber hand and held it firmly 
 and, lifting up his head, began frankly to tell her of his 
 past. 
 
 " I am a Southerner, born in New Orleans. . . ." 
 
 As he talked she listened spellbound by his power of
 
 294 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 narrative. In his speech he was as charming a creator as 
 in his art. She saw the picture of his Louisiana home; 
 she saw the exquisite figure of his mother; she saw the 
 beginning of his genius and his poetic, dreaming years. 
 When he began the more realistic part of his story, talking 
 aloud like this of himself for the first time to a woman 
 he loved, he forgot her entirely, carried back by a strong 
 force to the beginning of his struggles in New York. She 
 listened, unchanged and a little terrified, as he told her 
 of his work in the sculptor's studio, disguising the name 
 of the man for whom he worked. She stopped him, her 
 hand on his. So had she asked previously Cedersholm. 
 Her voice brought him back to the present, to a feeling 
 that for nothing in the world would he tell her yet, and 
 he said " No, no/' veiling the fact so that he could not 
 guess, and passed over the misery of his master's treachery 
 and his defeat. But through his narrative like a flame, 
 charming, brilliant, vivifying, flashed the personality of 
 Bella, though a child only, still a woman, and again Mary 
 Faversham, with her hand on his stopped him 
 
 " What a bewitching child," she said. " Don't speak 
 of her with such fire. I believe you loved her! She 
 must be a woman." 
 
 Antony stirred. He rose from the divan where he 
 was sitting and crossed over to the fireplace and stood 
 by the eighteenth-century clock where the crystal water 
 fell with the passing moments. She looked at him as he 
 stood there, powerfully built, strong, the light of his 
 feeling and of his introspection kindling in his eyes and 
 on his brow. It had been three o'clock when he began 
 his story. The afternoon grew paler, the fire died down 
 to ashes on the little hearth. He took a cigarette from 
 his pocket, lit it and stood smoking a few moments. 
 Then he went in his imagination to Albany and carried 
 his hearer with him, and he began to speak of Molly. He 
 waited for a moment before laying bare to her his intimate 
 ife. As he turned and met her eyes, he said 
 
 "I do not know how to tell you this. You must 
 listen as well as you can. It is life, you know, and there 
 are many kinds." 
 
 Antony, absorbed in his speech, forgot her entirely. 
 He told her of Molly Shannon with a tenderness that
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 295 
 
 would have moved any woman. When he closed the 
 chapter of his married life, with his last words a silence 
 fell, and he saw that she was moved beyond what he had 
 dreamed she would be. He went back to her, waited a 
 moment, then sat down and put his arm around her. 
 
 " That is my past/' he murmured. " Can you forget 
 what there is in it of defeat and forget its sorrow ? " 
 
 She kissed him and murmured: "I love you the 
 better for it. It seems you have come to me through 
 thorny ways, Antony. Perhaps I can make you forget 
 them." 
 
 He did not tell her that she would. Even in this 
 moment, when she was in his arms, he knew that in her 
 there- would be no such oblivion for him. The marks 
 were too deep upon him. He felt them now. With what 
 he had been saying, there came back to him a sense of the 
 tremendous burden he had borne when poor, a sense of 
 the common burden we all bear and which in the heart 
 of the poet nothing ever entirely lifts. 
 
 " Listen/' he said urgently and with a certain solemnity. 
 " Any other man would speak to you about nothing but 
 love. I can do it some day perhaps too easily, but not 
 now, for this is our beginning and between us both there 
 must be nothing to conceal." He thought she started a 
 little, and said hastily : " I mean, nothing for our souls 
 to hide. What I have told you is my life, but it does not 
 end there. I adore my work. I am a worker born, I don't 
 know how much of one, but I must give my time and my 
 talent to it." 
 
 " I know, I know," she breathed. " Do you think I 
 don't realize it, Antony? Do you think I don't adore you 
 for it? Why, it is part of what makes me love you." 
 
 " That is all," he said. " I could no more emancipate 
 myself from my work than I can from my ideals; they 
 are part of me. I am perfectly poor." 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, "don't, don't speak of 
 that." 
 
 He turned his fine eyes on her with a light in them 
 whose courage and beauty she did not understand. 
 
 "Why not speak of it?" he asked quietly, 
 am not ashamed of the fact that I have no money. Such 
 as money is, I shall make it some day, and I shall not
 
 296 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 value it then any more than I do now. It is necessary, 
 I begin to see, but only that. Its only importance is the 
 importance we give to it : to keep straight with our kind ; 
 to justify our existence, and," he continued, "to help 
 the next man." 
 
 His face took a firmer expression. More than in his 
 recitation of his life he seemed to forget her. As he said 
 so, his arms fell a little way away from her she grew 
 cold he seemed a stranger. Only for a moment, however, 
 for he turned, put out his arms, and drew her to him. He 
 kissed her as he had not kissed her yet, and after a few 
 moments said 
 
 " Mary, I bring you my talent, and my manhood, and 
 my courage nothing else and I want it to be enough 
 for you." 
 
 She said that it was. That it was more than enough. 
 
 Fairfax sighed, his arms dropped, he smiled and looked 
 at her, and said 
 
 " I wonder if it is ? " He glanced round the room 
 quietly, with an arrogance of which he was unconscious. 
 " You must give all this up, Mary." 
 
 "Must I?" She flushed and laughed. "You mean 
 to say you want me to come to Bohemia ? " 
 
 " I want you to live as I can live," he said, " share 
 what I must have . . . that is, I should ask you that if 
 you married me now. . . ." 
 
 He watched her face. It was still illuminated. Her 
 love for him was too vital to be touched by this proposition 
 which she did not wholly understand. 
 
 " Most men shrink," Fairfax said, " from taking the 
 woman they love from her luxuries. I believe that I 
 shall not be poor very long. It will be a struggle. If 
 you marry me now, you will share it with me, other- 
 wise. . . ." He waited a moment. 
 
 And she repeated : " Otherwise, Antony ? " 
 
 " I shall go away," he answered, " and not come back 
 again until I am rich and great."
 
 CHAPTEE XVII 
 
 AFTER he had left her he was dazed and incredulous. 
 His egoism, his enthusiasm, his idea of his own self- 
 sufficiency seemed preposterous. A man in love should 
 entertain no idea .but the thought of the woman herself. 
 He began to chafe at poverty which he had assured her 
 made no difference to him. Did he wish to live again 
 terrible years of sacrifice and sordidness? If so, he could 
 not hope a woman accustomed to luxury would choose to 
 share his struggle. He was absurd. 
 
 " Money," Dearborn said, regarding his shabby cuffs, 
 " opens many doors. I am inclined also to think that it 
 shuts many doors. You remember the Kingdom of 
 Heaven and the needle's eye; but," he continued whimsi- 
 cally, " I should not think of comparing Mrs. Faversham 
 to a camel, Tony ! " 
 
 " Don't be an ass," said Antony, proudly. " Mrs. 
 Faversham and I feel alike about it. Money will play 
 no part in our mutual future." And, as he said this, was 
 sure neither of her nor of himself. 
 
 " Under which circumstances," said his companion, 
 " I shall offer you another cup of coffee and tell you my 
 secret. Going with my play to London is not the only 
 one. I am in love. When you have drunk your coffee 
 we'll go home. Potowski is going to play for us, and he 
 is going to bring his wife at last." 
 
 The two friends sat that evening in a corner of a 
 cafe on the Boulevard Montparnasse. There were 
 Bohemians around them at their table, ami they themselves 
 were part of that happy, struggling world. Dearborn 
 dropped his voice, and said softly to Fairfax 
 
 297
 
 298 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 " And I have asked my little girl to come as well 
 to-night to hear the music." 
 
 Fairfax, instead of drinking his coffee, stared at 
 Dearborn, and when Dearborn murmured, " Nora Scarlet 
 is her name. Isn't it a name for a drama ? " Fairfax- 
 stared still harder and repeated the girl's name under his 
 breath, flushing, but Dearborn did not observe it. 
 
 " I want you to see her, Tony ; she is sweet and good." 
 
 "Bob," said Fairfax gravely, "you mean to tell me 
 you have been falling in love and carrying on a romance 
 without telling me a word about it ? " 
 
 Dearborn smiled. " To tell the truth, old man," he 
 replied, "you have been so absorbed; there was not room 
 for two romances in the studio. 
 
 " I met her in the springtime, Gentle Annie," Dearborn 
 said whimsically, " and it was raining cats and dogs 
 but for me it rained just love and Nora. We were both 
 waiting for a 'bus. Neither one of us had an umbrella. 
 Now that you speak of it, Tony, I think we have never 
 mended that lack in our possessions. We climbed to 
 the imperials together, and the rain beat upon us both. 
 We laughed, and I said to myself, a girl that can laugh 
 like that in a shower should be put aside for a rainy day. 
 We talked and we giggled. The rain stopped. We 1 
 forgot to get down. We went to the end of the line and 
 still we forgot to get down. The conductor collected a 
 double fare, and afterward I took her home." 
 
 (Antony thought to himself, " Just what I did not do.") 
 
 " She is angelic, Tony, delightful, an artist's dream, a 
 writer's inspiration, and a poor man's fairy." 
 
 Fairfax laughed. 
 
 " Don't laugh, old man," said Dearborn simply. " I 
 have never heard you rave like this about the peerless 
 Mary." 
 
 Fairfax said, " No. But then you talk better than I 
 do." He shook Dearborn's hand warmly. " You know 
 I am most awfully glad, don't you ? " 
 
 " I know I am," said Dearborn, lighting a cigarette. 
 
 He settled himself with a beautiful content, asking 
 nothing better than to go on rehearsing his love affair. 
 
 "We have been engaged a long time, Tony. It is 
 only a question of how little two people can dare to try
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 299 
 
 to get on with, you know, and I have determined to 
 risk it." 
 
 As they went up the steps of the studio together, 
 Fairfax said 
 
 " She is coming to-night, Bob, you say ? Does she 
 know anything about me ? " 
 
 At this Dearborn laughed aloud. " She knows a 
 great deal about me, Tony. My dear boy, do you think 
 we have talked, much about anything but each other? 
 Do you talk with Mrs. Faversham about me? Nora 
 knows I live here with a chum. She doesn't even know 
 your name." 
 
 As Dearborn threw open the door they could hear 
 Potowski playing softly the old French ballad, " J'ai perdu 
 ma tourterelle." 
 
 A woman sat by Potowski in a big chair, and the lamp 
 on the piano shone yellow upon her. When the two 
 men entered the studio she rose, and Potowski, still 
 playing, said 
 
 " Let me present, at last, my better half. Mes amis, 
 la Comtesse Potowski." 
 
 Dearborn greeted her enthusiastically, and Tony stood 
 petrified. The comtesse, more mistress of the moment 
 than Tony was, put out one hand and smiled, but she 
 had turned very pale. 
 
 It was his Aunt Caroline. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Rainsford," she lifted her brows, "I think I 
 have seen you before." 
 
 Tony bowed over her hand and Potowski, still smiling 
 and nodding, cried 
 
 " These are great men and geniuses, ma cherie. You 
 have here two great artists together. They both have 
 wings on their shoulders. Before they fly away from us 
 and are lost on Olympus, be charming to them. Carolina, 
 ma cherie, they shall hear you sing." 
 
 Robert Dearborn put his hand on Potowski's shoulder 
 and said 
 
 "We love your husband, madame. He has been such 
 a bully friend to us, such a wonderful friend." 
 
 " Poof, my dear Bobbie," murmured Potowski. 
 
 ("J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.") 
 
 Fairfax asked, looking directly at her, "Will you
 
 300 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 really sing for us, Madame Potowski ? Can you sing some 
 old English ballad? We have not heard a word of 
 English for many a long day/' 
 
 Potowski wandered softly into a familiar tune. He 
 smiled over his shoulder at his wife, and, standing by the 
 piano, Caroline Carew Carolina Potowski put her 
 hands over her husband's on the keys and indicated an 
 accompaniment, humming. 
 
 " If you can, dear, I will sing Mr. Kainsford this." 
 
 Tony took his place on the divan. 
 
 Then Madame Potowski sang : 
 
 "Flow gently, sweet Afton." 
 
 In New York Tony had said, as he sat in the big Puritan 
 parlour, that her voice was divine. No one who has ever 
 heard Carolina Potowski sing " Flow gently, sweet Afton " 
 can ever forget it. Tony covered his face with his hands 
 and said to himself, being an artist as well, " No matter 
 what she has done, it was worth it to produce such art 
 as that." 
 
 " Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braea 
 Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise, 
 My Mary is asleep by your turbulent stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream." 
 
 Little Gardiner once more leaned against his arm; 
 restless little Bella in red, her hair down her back, slipped 
 out of the room to read in peace, and he sat there, a 
 homeless stranger in a Northern city without a cent of 
 money in his pocket, and the desires of life and art shining 
 in his soul. 
 
 " Flow gently, sweet Afton." 
 
 He indistinctly heard Dearborn open the door. A 
 woman slipped in and went over and sat down by her 
 lover. The two sat together holding hands, and " Sweet 
 Afton " flowed on, and nobody's dream was disturbed. 
 Little Gardiner slept his peaceful sleep in his child's 
 grave; his mother slept her sleep in a Southern cemetery; 
 the Angel of Eesurrection raised his spotless wings over 
 the city of the silent dead, and Antony's heart swelled 
 in his breast.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 301 
 
 When the Comtesse Potowski stopped singing no one 
 said a word. Her husband played a few bars of Werther 
 and she sang the " Love Letters/' Then, before she 
 ceased, Antony was conscious that Nora Scarlet had 
 recognized him. Before any embarrassment could be 
 between them, he went over to her and took her hand, 
 saying warmly 
 
 " I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me 
 of his good fortune. He is the best fellow in the world, 
 and I know how lucky he is," and Nora Scarlet murmured 
 something, with her eyes turned away from him. 
 
 Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, 
 "You^must let me come to see you to-morrow. I want 
 to th'ank you for this wonderful treat." 
 
 And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, 
 and when Dearborn had taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony 
 stood in the studio, which still vibrated with the tones of the 
 lovely voice. He had lived once again a part of his old 
 life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made 
 havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to 
 him in Albany. 
 
 " Mother has done something perfectly terrible, 
 Cousin Antony something a daughter is not supposed 
 to know." 
 
 Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had 
 set herself free from a man she did not love; that she 
 was making Potowski happy; that she had found her 
 sphere and soared into it. 
 
 Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and 
 Mary Faversham, but he could not. The past rushed on 
 him with its palpitating wings. He groaned and stretched 
 out his arms into the shadows of the room. 
 
 " There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. 
 I am wedded to something is it death and a tomb ? "
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DURING the following weeks it seemed to him he was 
 chasing his soul and her own. In their daily intercourse 
 sweet, of course, tender, of course there was a constant 
 sense of limitation. He wanted her to share with him 
 his love of the beautiful, but Mary Faversham was con- 
 ventional. He would have spent hours with her in the 
 Louvre, hanging over treasures, musing before pictures 
 whose art he felt he could never sufficiently make his 
 own. Mrs. Faversham followed him closely, but after 
 a time watched the people. Whilst her lover in love 
 with all beauty remained transfixed over the con- 
 templation of a petrified rose found in the ruins of Pompeii, 
 or intoxicated himself with the beauty of an urn, she 
 would interrupt his meditation by speaking to him of 
 unimportant things. She found resemblances in the 
 little Grecian statues to her friends in society. Tony 
 sighed and relinquished seeing museums with Mary. She 
 patronized art with largesse and generosity but he dis- 
 covered it was one way to her of spending money, an 
 agreeable, satisfying way to a woman of breeding and 
 refinement. 
 
 The bewitching charm of her clothes, her great expendi- 
 tures on herself, made him open his blue eyes. Once he 
 held her exquisitely shod foot in his hand, admiring its 
 beauty and its slenderness. On the polished leather was 
 the sparkle of her paste buckles; he admired the ephem- 
 eral web of her silk stocking, and was ashamed that the 
 thought should cross his mind as to what this lovely foot 
 represented of extravagance. But he had been with her 
 when she bought the buckles on the Hue de la Paix; 
 he knew the price they cost. Was the money making him 
 gordid hypercritical, unkind ? 
 
 I4fe for six months whirled, round him. Mary 
 302
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 303 
 
 Faversham dazzled and bewitched him, charmed and 
 flattered him. Their engagement had not been made 
 public. He ceased to work; he was at her beck and 
 call; he went with her everywhere. At her house, in 
 her box at the opera, he met all Paris. She was hardly 
 ever alone with him; he made one of a group. Never- 
 theless, they were talked about. Several orders for busts 
 were the outcome of his meeting fashionable Paris; but 
 he did not work. Toward March he received word from 
 America that his bas-relief under the name of Thomas 
 Rainsford had won the ten thousand dollar prize. He 
 felt like a prince. For some singular reason he told no 
 one, not even Dearborn. In writing to him the committee 
 had ,told him that according to the contracts the money 
 would not be forthcoming until July. He had gone through 
 so many bitter disappointments in his life that he did not 
 want in the minds of his friends to anticipate this payment 
 and be disappointed anew. 
 
 Among his fellow-workers in the Barye studio was 
 the son of a millionaire pork-packer from Chicago. The 
 young man took a tremendous liking to Antony. With 
 a certain perspicacity, the rich young fellow divined 
 much of his new friend's needs. He came to the studio, 
 to their different reunions, and chummed heartily with 
 Dearborn and Fairfax. Peterson was singularly lacking 
 in talent and tremendously over-furnished with heart. 
 One day, as they worked side by side in the studio of the 
 big man, Peterson watched Antony's handling of a tiger's 
 head. 
 
 " By Jove ! " cried the Chicagoan, " you are simply 
 great you are simply great! I wonder if you would be 
 furious with me if I said something to you that is on my 
 mind?" 
 
 The something on the simple young man's mind was 
 that he wanted to lend Fairfax a sum of money, to be 
 paid back when the sculptor saw fit. After a moment's 
 hesitation Antony accepted the loan, making it one- 
 third as much as the big-hearted chap had suggested. 
 Fairfax set July as the date of payment, when his com- 
 petitive money should come in. He borrowed just 
 enough to keep him in food and clothes for the following 
 months.
 
 304 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 There were no motors in Paris then. In the mornings 
 he drove with Mrs. Faversham to the Bois and limped 
 by her side in the allees, whilst the worldly people stared 
 at the distinguished, conspicuous couple. One day Barye 
 himself stopped them, and to the big man Antony pre- 
 sented Mrs. Faversham who did not happen to know her 
 fiance's chief. 
 
 Fairfax looked at her critically as she laughed and 
 was sweet and gracious. Carriages filed past them ; 
 shining equipages, the froth and wine of life flowed around 
 them under the trees, whose chestnut torches were lit 
 with spring. 
 
 Barye said to Antony, " Not working, are you, Rains- 
 ford? C'est dommaqe," and turning to Mrs. Faversham 
 he added, nodding, " C'est domm-age" 
 
 Antony heard the words throughout the day, and they 
 haunted him c'est dommage. Barye's voice had been 
 light, but the sculptor knew the underlying ring in it. 
 There is, indeed, no greater pity than for a man of talent 
 not to work. That day he lunched with her on the 
 terrace of her hotel overlooking the rose garden. Fairfax 
 ate scarcely anything. Below his eyes spread a parterre 
 of perfect purple heliotropes. The roses were beginning 
 to bloom on their high trees, and the moist earth odours 
 from the garden he had thought so exquisite came to 
 him delicately on the warm breeze. But this day the 
 place seemed oppressive, shut in by its high iron walls. 
 In the corner of the garden, the gardener, an old man in 
 blue overalls, bent industriously over his potting, and to 
 Antony he seemed the single worthy figure. At the 
 table he was surrounded by idlers and millionaires. He 
 judged them bitterly to-day, brutally and unreasonably, 
 and hastily looked toward Mrs. Faversham, his future 
 life's companion, hoping that something in her expression 
 or in her would disenchant him from the growing horror 
 that was threatening to destroy his peace of mind. Mary 
 Faversham was all in white; from her ears hung the 
 pearls given her by her husband, whom she had never 
 loved; around her neck hung a creamy rope of pearls; 
 she was discussing with her neighbour the rising value 
 of different jewels. It seemed to them both a vital and 
 interesting subject.
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEiDE 305 
 
 It was the end of luncheon; the fragrance of the 
 strawberries, the fragrance of the roses came heavily to 
 Antony's nostrils. 
 
 His aunt, the Comtesse Potowski, sat at his right. 
 She was saying 
 
 " My dear boy, when are you going to be married ? 
 There is nothing like a happy marriage, Tony. A woman 
 may have children, you know, and be miserable; she has 
 not found the right man. I hope you will be very happy, 
 Tony." 
 
 Some one asked her to sing, and Madame Potowski, 
 languid, slim, with unmistakable distinction, rose to 
 play. ,^She suggested his mother to Antony. She sang 
 selections from the opera then in vogue. Tony stood near 
 the piano and listened. Her voice always affected him 
 deeply, and as he had responded to it in the old days in 
 New York he responded now, and there was a sense of 
 misery at his heart as he listened to her singing the music 
 of old times when he had been unable to carry out his 
 ideals because of his suffering and poverty. 
 
 There was now a sense of soul discontent, of pitiless 
 remorse. As if again to disenchant himself, he glanced at 
 Mary as she, too, listened. Back of her in the vases were 
 high branches of lilac, white and delicate, with the first 
 beauty of spring; she sat gracefully indolent, smoking 
 a cigarette, evidently dreaming of pleasant things. To 
 Antony there was a blank wall now between him and his 
 visions. How unreal everything but money seemed, and 
 his soul stifled and his senses numbed. In this atmos- 
 phere of riches and luxury what place had he ? Penniless, 
 unknown, his stature stunted for it had been dwarfed 
 by his idleness. Again he heard Barye say, " C'est 
 dommage." 
 
 His aunt's voice, bright as silver, filled the room. 
 He believed she was singing for him expressly, for she 
 had chosen an English ballad " Roll on, silvery moon." 
 Again, with a sadness which all imaginative and poetic 
 natures understand, his present slipped away. He was 
 back in Albany in the cab of his engine; the air bellied 
 in his sleeve, the air of home whipped in his veins he 
 saw the fields as the engine flashed by them, whitening 
 under the moonlight as the silvery moon rolled on ! How
 
 306 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 he had sweated to keep himself a man, how he had toiled 
 to keep his hope up and to live his life well, what a fight 
 he had made in order that his visions might declare 
 themselves to him ! 
 
 When his aunt ceased to sing and people gathered 
 around her, Tony rose and limped over to Mrs. Faversham. 
 He put out his hand. 
 
 " I must go, Mary," he said. " I have some work to 
 do this afternoon." 
 
 She smiled at him. " Don't be ridiculous, Tony." 
 
 The others had moved away to speak to the Comtesse 
 Potowski, and they were alone. 
 
 " I am becoming ridiculous," said Antony, " that is true, 
 but it is not because I am going to work." 
 
 She did not seem to notice anything in his gravity. 
 " Don't forget we are dining and driving out to Versailles ; 
 don't forget, Tony." 
 
 Fairfax made no response. On his face was a pitiless 
 look, but Mrs. Faversham, happy in her successful break- 
 fast and enchanted with the music, did not read his 
 expression. 
 
 " I will come in to-morrow, Mary." 
 
 Mrs. Faversham, turning to a man who had come up 
 to her, still understood nothing. 
 
 "Don't forget, Tony," she nodded at him "this 
 afternoon." 
 
 Antony bade her good-bye. He looked back at her 
 across the room, and she seemed to him then the greatest 
 stranger of them all.
 
 CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 HE went upstairs to his atelier with a strange eager 
 hammering at his heart. For several weeks the studio 
 had been, for him, little more than an ante-chamber 
 a dressing-room where he had made careful toilettes 
 before going to Mrs. Faversham. His constant attendance 
 upon a beautiful woman had turned him into something 
 of a dandy, and the purchase of fine clothes and linen had 
 eaten well into his borrowed money, which had been 
 frankly used by Dearborn when in need. 
 
 " Dearborn, wear any of my things you like, only 
 don't get ink spots on them, for God's sake ! " 
 
 And Dearborn had responded, " I don't need to go 
 courting in four-hundred-franc suits, Tony; Nora is my 
 kind, you know." 
 
 And when Antony had flashed out, "What the devil 
 do you mean ? " Dearborn explained 
 
 " Only that Nora and I are poor together. I didn't 
 intend to be rude, old man." 
 
 Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his 
 play under his arm and hope in his heart. Antony had 
 not been sorry to find himself alone. When he was not 
 with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets. 
 At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one 
 when at two o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning 
 out of the window, watch the dawn come up over the 
 Louvre, over the river and the quays. His easels, his 
 tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled 
 down upon them. His part of the big room had fallen 
 into disuse. In the salons of Mary Faversham nothing 
 seemed important but the possession of riches; they 
 talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no 
 one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there, 
 
 307 "
 
 308 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 but the makers of them seemed men of another sphere. 
 His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang there indeed, 
 but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had 
 grown accustomed to objects whose possession meant 
 small fortunes. His own few belongings seemed pitiful 
 and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled him, but 
 as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then 
 a beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked 
 with Dearborn in his studio, the lack of money had been 
 unimportant, and privation only a step on which men of 
 talent poised before going on. Lessons had been precious 
 to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled 
 senses had been keen. Now his lack of material resource 
 was terrible, degrading, sickening. 
 
 He threw open wide the window and let in the May 
 sunlight, and the noise of the streets came with it. Below 
 his window paused the " goat's milkman," calling sweetly 
 on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the valley; there 
 was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet, 
 and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar im- 
 personality of the few of the big city, the passing of the 
 anonymous throng, had a soothing effect upon him. The 
 river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on which 
 great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax 
 drew a long breath and turned to the studio, put on his 
 old corduroy clothes, filled himself a pipe, and uncovered 
 one of his statues in the corner, and with his tools in his 
 hand took his position before his discarded work. 
 
 This study had not struck him as being successful 
 when he had thrown the cloth over it in February, when 
 he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. 
 Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the 
 piece of work struck his critical sense with its several 
 qualities of merit. He was too real an artist not to see 
 its value and to judge it. Was it possible that he had 
 created that charming thing had there been in him 
 sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was 
 impossible for Antony to put himself in the frame of mind 
 in which he had been before he left his work ; in vain 
 he tried to bring back the old inspiration of feeling. The 
 work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He 
 was jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short
 
 309 
 
 a time a useless man? He should have been gaining in 
 experience. A man is all the richer for being in love 
 and being loved. The image of Mary would not come 
 to him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her 
 surrounded by people and things. Evidently his love had 
 not inspired him, nor did luxury and the intercourse 
 with worldly people. He had been the day before with 
 Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated 
 painter's work, the fruits of four years of labour. The 
 artist himself, frightfully obese, smiling and self-satisfied, 
 stood surrounded by his canvases. None of the paint- 
 ings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works 
 not one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student 
 
 say, " B used to paint with his soul before he was 
 
 rich, now he paints with his stomach/' The marks of the 
 beast had stamped out the divine seal. 
 
 As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where 
 he and Dearborn had half starved together, he said, 
 " I have never yet become so frightfully rich as to 
 imperil my soul." 
 
 In the declining spring light he began to model. He 
 did not look like a happy man, like a happy lover, like a 
 man destined to marry a beautiful woman with several 
 millions of dollars. " Damn money/' he muttered as he 
 worked, and, after a little, " Damn poverty," he murmured. 
 What was it, then, he could bless? In his present point 
 of view nothing seemed blessed. He was working savagely 
 and heavily, but hungrily too, as though he besought his 
 hands to find again for him the sacred touch that should 
 electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to 
 send its enlightened message to his hand, or as though he 
 called on his emotion to warm his hardened heart a 
 combination which he believed was needful to work and 
 art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him 
 a letter. 
 
 It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, 
 holding it up to the fading light. As he saw Dearborn's 
 handwriting he realized that he missed his companion, 
 and also realized the strong link between them which is 
 so defined between those who work at a kindred art. 
 
 " Dear old man/' the letter was dated London - 
 " I am sky-high in a room for which I pay a shilling a
 
 316 FAIRFAX Aro HIS PRIDE 
 
 night. A thing in the roof is called a window. Through 
 it I see a field of pots not flower-pots, but chimney-pots 
 and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke 
 of endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every 
 blessed thing in this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey 
 cloth, once meant to be white. Other lodgers have left 
 burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers have 
 long since been put out by the soot. Out of this hole in 
 the roof I see London, the sky-line of London in a spring 
 sky. There is a singular sort of beauty in this sky, as if 
 it had trailed its cerulean mantle over fields of English 
 bluebells. For another shilling I dine; for another I 
 lunch. I skip breakfast. I calculate I can stay here 
 ten days, then the shillings will be all gone, Tony. In 
 these ten days, old man, I shall sell my play. I am 
 writing you this on the window-sill ; without is the mutter 
 of soft thunder of London the very word London thrills 
 me to the marrow. Such great things have come out 
 of London such prose such verse such immortality ! 
 
 " To-day I passed ' Jo/ Dickens's street-sweeper, in 
 Dickens's ' Bleak House/ I felt like saying to him, ' I 
 am as poor as you are, Jo, to-day/ but I remembered there 
 were a few shillings between us. 
 
 "Well, old man, as I sit here I seem to have risen 
 high above the roof-tops and to look down on the struggle 
 in this great vortex of life, and here and there a man goes 
 amongst them all, carrying a wreath of laurel. Tony, 
 my eyes are upon him ! Call me a fool if you will, call me 
 mad; at any rate I have faith. I know I will succeed. 
 Something tells me I will stand before the curtain when 
 they call my name. It is growing late. I must go out 
 and forage for food . . . Tony. I kiss the hand of the 
 beautiful Mrs. Faversham." 
 
 Antony turned the pages between his fingers. The 
 reading of the letter had smoothed the creases from his 
 brow. He sighed as he lifted his head to say " Come in," 
 for some one had knocked timidly at the door. 
 
 " Hello ! " Fairfax said, and now that they were alone 
 he called her " Aunt Caroline." 
 
 Madame Potowski came forward and kissed him. 
 
 He drew a big chair into the window. He was always 
 solicitous of her and a little pitiful.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 311 
 
 Madame Potowski's hair had been soft brown once; 
 it was golden, frankly so, now, and her fine lips were a 
 little rouged. In her dress of changeable silk, her cape 
 of tulle, her hat with a bunch of roses, her tiny gloved 
 hands, she was a very elegant little lady. She rested her 
 hands on her parasol and had suggested his mother to 
 Antony. Then, as that resemblance passed, came the 
 fleeting suggestion which he never cared to hold of 
 Bella. 
 
 " I have come, my dear Tony, to see you. I wanted to 
 see you alone." 
 
 Tony lit a cigar and sat by her side. The Comtesse 
 Potowski had a little diamond watch with a chain on her 
 breast. Outside the clock struck five. 
 
 "I have only a second to stay my husband misses 
 me if I am five minutes out of his sight." 
 
 " I do not wonder, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 " Isn't it all strange, Tony," she asked, " how very 
 far up we have come ? " 
 
 He shook the ashes off his cigar. "Well, I don't feel 
 myself very far up, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 " My dear Tony, aren't you going to marry an immense 
 fortune ? " 
 
 " Is that what people say, Aunt Caroline ? " 
 
 " You are going to do a very brilliant thing, Tony." 
 
 " Is that what you call going very far up ? " 
 
 His aunt shook her pretty head. " Money is the 
 greatest power in the world, dear boy. Art is very well, but 
 there is nothing in the wide world like an income, dear." 
 
 Her nephew stirred in his chair. Caroline Potowski 
 looked down at her little diamond watch, her dress shining 
 like a bunch of many-hued roses. Antony knew that her 
 husband was rich; he also made a good income from 
 his singing and she must have made not an inconsiderable 
 fortune. 
 
 "What are you thinking about?" said his aunt 
 later, her hand on his own. "You have shown great 
 wisdom, great worldly wisdom." 
 
 " My God ! " exclaimed her nephew between his teeth. 
 
 If Madame Potowski heard this exclamation, it was 
 not tragic to her. She lowered her tone, although there 
 was no one to hear them,
 
 312 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 " Tony, I am very anxious about money/' 
 
 Her nephew laughed aloud. In spite of himself there 
 came over him in a flash the memory of the day nearly 
 ten years ago when she sat on the side of his miserable 
 little bed in his miserable little room in New York and 
 took from him as a loan which she never meant to pay 
 back all the money he had in the world. He put his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Has your husband any financial difficulties ? " 
 
 "My husband knows nothing about it," she said 
 serenely. "You don't suppose I could tell him, do you? 
 I must have five thousand francs, dear Tony, before to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Tony said lightly, "I am afraid economy is not your 
 strong point." 
 
 " Tony," she exclaimed reproachfully, "I am a 
 wonderful manager; I can make a franc go further than 
 my husband can a louis, and I have a real gift for bargains. 
 Think of it ! I only had one hundred dollars a month to 
 dress myself and Bella and poor little Gardiner, and for 
 all my little expenses." The children's names on her 
 lips seemed sacrilege to him. He did not wish her to 
 speak those sacred names, or destroy his sacred past, 
 whose charm and tenderness persisted over all the suffer- 
 ing and which nothing could destroy. " I have been buying 
 a quantity of old Chinese paintings a great bargain; 
 in ten years they will be worth double the money. You 
 must come and see them. The dealer will deliver them 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " History," Antony thought, " how it repeats itself ! " 
 
 Caroline Potowski leaned toward her nephew per- 
 suasively, and even in the softened twilight he saw the 
 weakness and the caprices of her pretty face, and he 
 pitied Potowski. 
 
 " I must have five thousand francs before to-morrow," 
 said his aunt, " otherwise these dealers will make me 
 trouble." 
 
 Fairfax laughed again. With a touch of bitterness he 
 said 
 
 " And I must have an income of five times as much 
 as that a year ten times as much as that a year unless 
 I wish to feel degraded because I am a poor labourer."
 
 313 
 
 The comtesse did not reply to this. As she did not, 
 Fairfax saw the humour of it. 
 
 " You do not really think I could give you five thousand 
 francs, auntie ? " 
 
 " I know you haven't a great deal of money, dear 
 boy * 
 
 " N"ot a great deal, auntie." 
 
 "But you seem to have such a lot of time to spend to 
 amuse yourself." 
 
 He nodded. " So I seem to have." 
 
 The comtesse looked at him a little askance. "You 
 are going to make such a brilliant marriage. Mrs. Faver- 
 sham is so fearfully rich." 
 
 Fairfax exclaimed, but shut down on the words that 
 came to his lips. He realized that his aunt was a toy 
 woman, utterly irresponsible, a pretty fool. He said 
 simply 
 
 " You had better frankly tell your husband." 
 
 She swung her parasol to and fro. " You think so, 
 Tony?" 
 
 " Decidedly." 
 
 " And you couldn't possibly manage, Tony ? " 
 
 Tony pointed to his studies. " These are my only 
 assets; these are my finances, auntie. I shall have 
 to sell something to live on if I am so lucky as to be 
 able to find a customer." 
 
 " If I could give the dealer a thousand francs to- 
 morrow I think he would wait," said his aunt. 
 
 Tony shook his head. " I wish I were a millionaire 
 for five minutes, Aunt Caroline." 
 
 His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. " I shall 
 have to pawn my watch and necklace," she said tranquilly. 
 " Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled, nodding at him, 
 "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on 
 her when she marries." 
 
 A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another 
 heiress ! 
 
 "They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought 
 after." 
 
 Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took 
 a few paces up and down the room. 
 
 " Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked
 
 314 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 over to the door and stood with her hand on the knob, 
 " I used to think you were a little in love with Bella. 
 She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown 
 up." 
 
 Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, " Aunt Caroline, I don't 
 like to re-live the past ! " 
 
 " I don't wonder," she murmured quietly ; " and you 
 are going to make such a brilliant marriage." 
 
 He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him 
 like a vampire in her silks and jewels. Would she ruin 
 her innocent, kindly husband? What would she do if 
 she could not raise the money? He believed her capable 
 of anything. 
 
 For three days he worked feverishly, and then he 
 wrote to Mrs. Faversham that he was a little seedy and 
 working, and that as Dearborn was away he would 
 rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham 
 accepted his decision and wrote that she was organizing 
 a charity concert for some fearfully poor people whom 
 the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing; the comte and 
 comtesse would both sing at the musicale, and he must 
 surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," 
 she wrote, " and perhaps you may have some little figurine 
 that we could rafHe off in chances." 
 
 Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a 
 statuette to be raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. 
 She was ignorant of any sense of honour. 
 
 When Dearborn came back from London he found 
 Antony working like mad. 
 
 Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his 
 hat on top of it, and extended his hands. 
 
 " Empty-handed, Tony ! " 
 
 But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no 
 expression of defeat there. 
 
 "Which means you left your play in London, Bob." 
 
 "Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's 
 and marching him up and down the studio, " we are going 
 to be very rich." 
 
 " Only that," said Tony shortly. 
 
 "This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old 
 man!"
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 515 
 
 Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet 
 out of his pocket, took from it a sheaf of English notes, 
 which he held up to Fairfax. 
 
 " Count it, old chap." 
 
 Fairfax shook his head. " No ; tell me how much 
 for two years' flesh and blood and soul how you worked 
 here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and suffered ! " 
 
 " I forget it all," said the playwright quietly ; " but 
 it can never be paid for with such chaff as this/' he 
 touched the notes. " But the applause, the people's voices, 
 the tears and laughter, that will pay." 
 
 " By heaven ! " exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's 
 hand, "_I bless you for saying that! " 
 
 Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I 
 care for money ? " he said simply. " I thought you knew 
 me better than that." 
 
 Fairfax exclaimed, " Oh, I don't know what I know 
 or think ; I am in a bad dream." 
 
 Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is 
 for you and me and Nora, the bunch, just as long as it 
 lasts." 
 
 Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engage- 
 ment, there had been a distinct reserve. 
 
 Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from 
 Antony's. The two friends settled themselves com- 
 fortably. It was the close of the day. Without, as usual, 
 rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going with 
 the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal 
 noise always made for them an accompaniment not dis- 
 agreeable. The last light of the spring day fell on Fair- 
 fax's uncovered work, on the damp clay with the fresh 
 marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a 
 red scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half 
 curled up on the divan. The last of the day's light fell 
 too on Dearborn's reddish hair, on his fine intelligent 
 face. Fairfax said 
 
 "Now tell me everything, Bob, from the begin- 
 ning, from the window as you looked over the chimney- 
 pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in the 
 air tell me everything, to the last word the manager 
 said." 
 
 "Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand.
 
 316 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 " Nora is coining. I want to tell it to her as well. No 
 one can tell twice alike the story of his first success the 
 first agony of first success." He caught his breath and 
 struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. " It will be 
 a success, thank God! There is Nora," and he crossed 
 the studio to let Nora Scarlet in.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE third day he went up to see her and found her in the 
 garden, a basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore 
 a garcUn hat covered with roses and carried a pair of 
 gilded shears with which to snip her flowers. As Antony 
 came down the steps of the house she dropped the scissors 
 into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her 
 cheek to him. 
 
 " You may kiss me, dear," she said ; " no one will 
 see us but the flowers and the birds." 
 
 Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though 
 his arms were full of flowers. 
 
 " If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to 
 you. You look well, Tony," she said. " I don't believe 
 you have been ill at all." 
 
 " My work, Mary." 
 
 She took his arm and started towards the house. 
 "You must let me come and see what wonderful things 
 you are doing." 
 
 " I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. 
 " It has taken me all this time to realize I was never a 
 sculptor; I have been so atrociously idle, Mary." 
 
 " But you need rest, my dear Tony." 
 
 " I shall not need any rest until I am an old man." 
 
 He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They 
 walked past the flower-beds, and she picked the dead 
 roses, cutting the withered leaves, and talking to him 
 gaily, telling him all she had done during the days of their 
 separation, and suddenly he said 
 
 " You do not seem to have missed me." 
 
 " Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm. 
 
 They walked together slowly to the house, where 
 she left her roses in the hall and took him into the 
 
 317
 
 318 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 music-room, where they had been last when he left her, 
 the afternoon following the luncheon. 
 
 " I must impress her indelibly on my mind/* Antony 
 thought. " I may never see her again." 
 
 When she had seated herself by the window through 
 which he could see the roses on the high rose trees and the 
 iron balcony on whose other side was the rumble of Paris, 
 he stood before her gravely. 
 
 " Come and sit beside me/' she invited, clowly. 
 " You seem suddenly like a stranger." 
 
 " Mary/' he said simply, " the time has come for me 
 
 to ask you " The words stuck in his throat. What 
 
 in God's name was he going to ask her? What a fanatic 
 he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts! she in- 
 terrupted him. 
 
 " I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I hare 
 been waiting." She leaned against him. " You see, I 
 have had the foolish feeling that perhaps you didn't care 
 as you thought you did. It is that dreadful difference 
 in our age." 
 
 " Do you care, Mary ? " 
 
 She might have answered him, "Why otherwise 
 should I rnarry a penniless man, five years my junior, 
 when the world is before me ? " 
 
 She said, " Yes, I care deeply." 
 
 "Ah," he breathed, "then it ia all right, Mary; that 
 ia all we need." After a few seconds he said gently: 
 " Now look at me." Her face was flushed and her eyes 
 humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one 
 of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to 
 time touched it with his lips. " Listen to me ; try to 
 understand. I am a Bohemian, an artist; say that over 
 and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been 
 ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my 
 soul. This life here," he gestured to the room as though 
 it held a host of enemies, " this life here has crushed me. 
 I had begun to think myself a miserable creature just 
 because I am poor. Now, if money is the only thing 
 that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable 
 creature, and then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it 
 is not the only thing, well then, let us drink the other 
 things to their dregs."
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 319 
 
 She said, " What other things ? " 
 
 "Why, the beauty of struggling together with every 
 material consideration cast out! Think how beautiful 
 it is to work for one you love ; think of the beauty of being 
 all in all to each other, Mary ! " 
 
 " But we are that, Tony." 
 
 Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. 
 "You owe your luxury to your husband whom you never 
 loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything more, 
 Mary." 
 
 She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in 
 connection with him/' 
 
 Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I 
 had been selling my soul," he said passionately. "And 
 what can a man have in exchange for his soul ? Of course, 
 it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you to 
 marry me." 
 
 She put both her hands over his and breathed his 
 name. He spoke desperately, and the picture rose up 
 before him of his bare studio and his meagre life. 
 
 " Will you marry me now ? " 
 
 " I said I was quite ready." 
 
 " The day will come when I will be rich and great." 
 He paused. He saw that her eyes were already troubled, 
 and asked eagerly, "You believe that, don't you?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman 
 ashamed. You must wait for that time with me." 
 
 Mary Faversham said quietly, " You have been 
 shutting yourself up with a lot of fanatical ideas." 
 
 He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face 
 became grave. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "don't speak wait. You don't 
 dream what every word you say is going to mean wait. 
 You don't understand what I mean ! " 
 
 And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was 
 about to impose upon her. If he had been assured of 
 his love for her, assured of her love for him, he might 
 have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be talking 
 to her through a veil. He shook his head. 
 
 " No, I cannot ask it, Mary." 
 
 Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change.
 
 320 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 It was never lovelier than now, as with gravity and sweet- 
 ness she put her arms around his neck and looked up at 
 him with great tenderness. She said 
 
 "I think I know what you mean. You want me to 
 give up my fortune and go to you/' 
 
 She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his 
 worship of her at this moment increased a thousandfold. 
 He leaned forward and laid his head against her breast. 
 
 In the love of all women there is a strong quality of 
 the maternal. Mary bent over the blond head and pressed 
 her lips to his hair. When Antony lifted his face there 
 were tears in his eyes. He cried 
 
 " Heaven bless you, darling ! You don't know how 
 high I will take you, how far I will carry us both. The 
 world shall talk of us ! Mary Mary ! " 
 
 She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would 
 never be another moment in her life like this one. 
 
 He said, " I will take you to the studio, of course. 
 I haven't told you that in June I shall have fifty thousand 
 francs, and from then on I will be succeeding so fast that 
 we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her faintly 
 smile, and said sharply, " I suppose you spend fifty 
 thousand francs now on your clothes ! " 
 
 She said frankly, " And more ; but that makes no 
 difference," and ventured, " You don't seem to think, 
 Tony, what a pleasure it would be to me to do for you." 
 She paused at his exclamation. " Oh, of course, I under- 
 stand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with 
 my fortune, Tony ? " 
 
 " This money on which you are living," he said gravely, 
 " that you have accepted from a man you never loved, 
 give it all to the poor. Keep the commandment for once, 
 and we will see what the treasures of heaven are like." 
 
 He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was 
 an ardour in the return of her caress that made him say 
 
 " Mary, don't answer me to-day, please ; I want you 
 to think it calmly over. Just now you have shown me 
 what I wanted to see." 
 
 She asked, "What?" 
 
 " That you love me." 
 
 She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it 
 always ? "
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 321 
 
 Bending over her he said passionately, "I shall 
 believe it when I have your answer, and you are going 
 to make me divinely happy." 
 
 She echoed the word softly, " Happy ! " and her 
 lips trembled. Across the ante-chamber came the sound 
 of voices. Their retreat was about to be invaded by the 
 people of the world who never very long left Mary Faver- 
 sham alone. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried, " I cannot see any one. Why did 
 they let any one in ? " And, lifting her face to him, she 
 said in a low tone, " Tony, kiss me again." 
 
 Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who 
 might-net, caught her to him and held her for a second, 
 then crossed the room to the curtained door and went 
 down the terrace steps and across the garden. 
 
 By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, 
 through the long French windows, he could see the music- 
 room with the palms and gilt furniture. Mary Faversham 
 
 was already surrounded by the Comte de B and 
 
 the Baron de F . He knew them vaguely. Before 
 
 going to get his hat and stick from the vestibule, he 
 watched her for a few moments, with a strange adoration 
 in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up every- 
 thing for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could 
 never love more than at this moment. He believed that 
 he was not asking her to make a ridiculous sacrifice, but 
 on the contrary to accept a spiritual gain a sacrifice of 
 all for love and art and honour, too ! As he looked 
 across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary 
 Faversham. He was welcomed very cordially. It was 
 Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for months. Fair- 
 fax's heart grew cold. 
 
 As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might 
 linger, she came over to the window and drew down the 
 Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly, and blotted out 
 the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a 
 sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, 
 and immediately he saw himself ridiculous, crude and 
 utterly fantastical in his ultimatum. The egoism and 
 childishness of what he had done stood out to him, and 
 in that second he knew that he had lost her lost her 
 for ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 HE did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked 
 for miles. His unequal, limping strides tired him to death 
 and he was finally the only wanderer there. Over the 
 exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars came out at 
 length, and the guardians began to observe him. At 
 eight o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went 
 into a small restaurant and made a light meal. For the 
 first time since Albany, when he had drank too much in 
 despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He 
 walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang 
 the bell at Mary Faversham's at nine-thirty in the 
 morning, and the butler, intensely surprised, informed 
 him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with 
 Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant 
 more fees that he could afford. He found a piece of 
 money in his pocket and gave it to Ferdinand. 
 
 " But, monsieur," said the man, embarrassed, and 
 handled the piece. It was a louis. Antony waved 
 magnificently and started away. He took a cab back to 
 the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis 
 was his last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of 
 a profound sleep, in which the playwright was dreaming 
 of two hundred night performances. 
 
 " Bob, can you let me have a few francs ? " 
 
 " In my vest pocket/' said Dearborn. " Take what you 
 like." 
 
 Tony paid his cab out of the change and realized that 
 it was some of the money from Dearborn's advance 
 royalties. It gave him pleasure to think that he was 
 spending money which had been made by art. It was 
 " serious money." He did not hesitate to use it. He 
 sat by the table when he came in from paying his cab 
 
 322
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 323 
 
 and fell into a heavy sleep, his head upon his arm. Thus 
 the two friends slumbered until noon, Dearborn dreaming 
 of fame and Antony of despair. 
 
 At two o'clock that afternoon, bathed and dressed, 
 himself again save for a certain bewilderment in his 
 head, he stood in his window looking out on the quays. 
 Underneath, Nora Scarlet and Dearborn passed arm-in- 
 arm. They were going to Versailles to talk of love, of 
 fame and artistic struggle, under the trees. Antony 
 heard the shuffling of his old concierge on the stairs. He 
 knew that the man was bringing him a letter and that it 
 would be from Mary. 
 
 WiilT the letter between his hands, he waited some 
 few minutes before opening it. He finally read it, sitting 
 forward on the divan, his face set. 
 
 " DEAREST/' it began, and then there was a long space 
 as though the woman could not bear to write the words, 
 "You will never be able to judge me fairly. I cannot 
 ask it of you. You are too much of a genius to under- 
 stand a mere woman. I am writing you in my boudoir, 
 just where you came to me that day when you told me your 
 love and when I wept to hear it, dearest. I shall cry again, 
 thinking of it, many times. I have done you a great 
 wrong in taking ever so little of you, and taking even 
 those few months from the work which shall mean so 
 much to the world. Now I am glad I have found it out 
 before it is too late. I have no right to you, Tony. In 
 answer to what you asked me yesterday, I say no. You 
 will not believe it is for your sake, dear, but it is. I see 
 you could not share my life in any way, and keep your 
 ideals. How could I ask you to ? I see I could not share 
 your struggle and leave you free enough to keep your ideals. 
 
 " I can never quite believe that love is a mistake. I 
 shall think of mine for you the rest of my life. When 
 you read this letter I shall have left Paris. Do not try 
 to find me or follow me. I know your pride, dear, the 
 greatest pride I ever saw or dreamed of. I wonder if it 
 is a right one. At any rate, it will not let you follow 
 me; I am sure of that. I wish to put between us an 
 immeasurable distance, one which no folly on your part 
 and no weakness on mine could bridge. Cedersholm has
 
 324 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 returned from Russia, and I told him last night that I 
 would marry him. MARY." 
 
 Then, for the first time, Tony knew how he loved her. 
 Crushing the letter between his hands, he snatched up 
 his hat and rushed out, took a cab, and drove like mad 
 to her house. 
 
 The little horse galloped with him, the driver cracked 
 his whip with utterances like the sparks flying, and they 
 tore up the Champs Elysees, part of the great multitude, 
 yet distinct, as is every individual with their definite 
 sufferings and their definite joys. 
 
 Her house stood white and distinct at the back of the 
 garden, the windows were flung open. On the steps of 
 the terrace a man-servant, to whom Antony had given 
 fat tips which he could not afford, stood in an undress 
 uniform, blue apron and duster over his arm; painters 
 came out with ladders and placed them against the wall. 
 The old gardener, Felicien, who had given him countless 
 boutonnieres, mounted the steps with a flower-pot in his 
 hand and talked with the man-servant; he was joined 
 by two maids. The place was left, then, to servants. 
 Everything seemed changed. She might never he was 
 sure she would never return as Mrs. Faversham. Im- 
 measurably far away indeed, as she said immeasurably 
 far she seemed to have gone into another sphere, and 
 yet he had held her in his arms! The thought of his 
 tenderness was too real to permit of any other considera- 
 tion holding its place. He sprang out of his cab, rang the 
 door-bell, and when the door was opened he asked the 
 surprised servant for Mrs. Faversham's address. 
 
 " But I have no idea of it, monsieur," said the man 
 with a comprehensive gesture. " None." 
 
 " You are not sending any letters ? " 
 
 " None, monsieur." 
 
 Fairfax's blue eyes, his pale, handsome face, appealed 
 very much to Ferdinand. He liked Monsieur Rainsford. 
 Although the chap did not know it himself, Tony had 
 been far more generous than were the millionaires. 
 Ferdinand called one of the maids. 
 
 " Where's madame's maid stopping in London ? " 
 asked the butler.
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 325 
 
 "Why, at the Ritz," said Louise promptly. "She 
 is always at the Ritz, monsieur." 
 
 Tony had no more gold to reward this treachery. 
 
 When Dearborn came home that night from Versailles 
 he found a note on the table, leaning up against the box 
 in which the two comrades kept their mutual fund of 
 money. Dearborn's advance royalty was all gone but a 
 hundred francs. 
 
 " I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. " Sell 
 anything of mine you like before I get back, if you are 
 hard up. TONY." 
 
 He 'spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to 
 meet Cedersholm with her, he would have shot him. From 
 the hour he had received her letter and learned that she 
 was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been hardly sane. 
 
 At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days 
 after he had left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting- 
 room at the Whiteheart Hotel, in Windsor. He had 
 traced her there from the Ritz. 
 
 Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, 
 white as death. 
 
 " Tony," she said, " don't come nearer stand there, 
 Tony. Dear Tony, it is too late, too late ! " 
 
 He limped across the room and took her in his arms, 
 looking at her wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled. 
 
 " I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. 
 Go, go, before he comes." 
 
 He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, 
 fell on his knees and buried his head in her lap. He 
 clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision of the Woman, 
 to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought 
 at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over 
 him and kissed his hair, weeping. 
 
 " Go," she said. " Go, my darling." 
 
 Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, 
 prayers were in his heart. He crushed them down. 
 
 " I love you for your pride," she said. " I adore you 
 for the brave demand you made me. I could not fulfil 
 it, Tony, for your sake." 
 
 Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have 
 ruined my life."
 
 326 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 " Oh no ! " she cried. " Don't say such a thing ! " 
 
 " Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with 
 tears in his eyes. " You loved me/' he challenged, " you 
 did love me ! " 
 
 She did not dare to say " I love you still." She saw 
 what the tragedy would be. 
 
 "We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, 
 dear?" 
 
 He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you 
 could not have cared." And she was strong enough to 
 take advantage of his change. 
 
 "I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or 
 I should never have done this." 
 
 Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, 
 this time brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, 
 crying to her as he had cried once before 
 
 " Tell him how I kissed you tell him ! " 
 
 White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. 
 " For the love of God, Tony, go ! " 
 
 And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in 
 Windsor the bugles for some solemn festivity were 
 blowing. 
 
 " The flowers of the forest are all wied away."
 
 BOOK IV 
 BELLA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FROM the Western world he heard nothing for four years. 
 Meanwhile he brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, 
 the result of seven years' study and creation in the work- 
 shops of masters and in his own studio, to the sculpturing 
 of the second tomb the Open Door. 
 
 There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, 
 and he mingled with them, watching them muse, discuss, 
 criticize, grow sad and thoughtful before his conception of 
 Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom Rains- 
 ford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. 
 Others hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open 
 Door. Purely white, stainless, slender, luminous and 
 yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by Antony. Hig 
 conception made him famous. 
 
 He had exhibited each year with increasing success 
 at private exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had 
 been called " poseur " because of his reluctance to 
 expose his work in national academies. His bas-reliefs 
 had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled 
 the solemn marble that came now from his studio. 
 Antony's work occupied some twenty feet in the Champ 
 de Mars. 
 
 His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the 
 floor, in which the critics spoke of him in terms he thought 
 fulsome and ridiculous, and they pained him while they 
 dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had thought of 
 
 327
 
 328 FAIRFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to 
 his questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, 
 married, no doubt, always enchanting. How she had 
 stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing, and her 
 eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, 
 "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, 
 beautiful ! " He would have liked to have led Bella to 
 his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with her, until 
 the crowd around them should have melted away, have 
 stood there with her alone. From the night her in- 
 spiring little hand had stolen into his, Bella's hand had 
 seemed a mate for his. 
 
 " Who is it, Cousin Antony ? " 
 
 Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open 
 Door? What woman's face and form constantly inspired 
 him, haunting him, promising to haunt him until the end ? 
 He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions 
 and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the 
 companion. 
 
 Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, 
 his past, had done their work. What fresh inspiration 
 would urge him now to create ? 
 
 The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb 
 made him celebrated in twenty-four hours. At a time 
 when all Paris was laughing at Eodin's Balzac, there was 
 a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist and 
 dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique. 
 
 He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise 
 which the " Open Door " called forth from the reviews. 
 " It is not as good as all that," he thought, " and it is 
 too soon to hear thunder about my ears." 
 
 He seemed to see the door of his future open and 
 himself standing there, the burden of proof upon him. 
 What work he must continue to produce in order to sustain 
 such sudden fame ! The Figaro called him a " giant," 
 and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. 
 His mail was full of letters from friends and strangers. 
 By ten o'clock the night of the " Vernissage " all his 
 acquaintances and intimates in Paris had brought him 
 their felicitations. He turned back to his table where 
 his letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, en- 
 thusiastic expression of praise and belief from Potowski.
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 329 
 
 There was another note which he had read first with anger, 
 then with keen satisfaction, and then with as much malice 
 as his heart could hold. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I have the honour to represent in France the 
 committee for the construction in Boston of a triumphal 
 arch to be raised in commemoration of the men who first 
 fell in the battle of the Revolution. The idea is to crown 
 this arch with a group of figures, either realistic 
 or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit. After carefully 
 considering the modern work of men in France, I am 
 inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept 
 it. Your l Open Door ' is the most beautiful piece of 
 sculpture, according to my opinion, in modern times. An 
 appointment would gratify me very much. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, sir, etc., 
 
 " GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." 
 
 Antony had given the appointment with excitement, 
 and he was waiting now to see for the first time in ten 
 years the man who had stolen from him fame, honour, 
 and love. 
 
 He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six 
 years. As far as he knew, during this time they had 
 never returned to France. Once he vaguely understood 
 that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's health. 
 
 His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded 
 as his bitterest enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought 
 now only as he thought of woman, of vain visions which 
 he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly 
 torn his love out of his heart. 
 
 After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for 
 some time in London where Dearborn had followed him, 
 and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet were married. 
 Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's 
 Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful 
 play. Fairfax took a position as professor of drawing 
 in a girls' school in the West End and taught a group 
 of schoolgirls for several months. Between times he 
 modelled on his statues for his new conception of the 
 " Open Door." Then in the following spring, with a
 
 830 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 yearning in his heart and homesickness for France, he 
 returned into the city with the May. He could scarcely 
 look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. 
 He rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and 
 began his work in terrible earnestness. 
 
 Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if 
 Mary Cedersholm had visited the Salon, if with others she 
 had stood before his sculpture. His servant announced 
 " Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and shut 
 the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast 
 studio in the soft light of late afternoon with which the 
 spring twilight, rapidly withdrawing, filled the room. 
 Antony did not stir from his chair, where he sat enveloped 
 in a cloud of tobacco smoke. 
 
 The small man Fairfax had forgotten how small he 
 was entered cautiously as though he were entering the 
 room of a foe, which, indeed, he was doing, without 
 being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had seen 
 Cedersholm wearing a single eyeglass, and now spectacles 
 of extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently 
 saw with difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, 
 Cedersholm approached, saying tentatively 
 
 " Mr. Rainsf ord ? I believe I have an appointment 
 with Mr. Rainsford." 
 
 " Yes," said Fairfax curtly, " I am here. Sit down, 
 will you ? " 
 
 His lame foot, which would have disclosed his identity, 
 was withdrawn under his chair. 
 
 " I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, 
 " where I had a sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly." 
 
 " Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, " is a common fail- 
 ing, but many of us don't know we have anything the mat- 
 ter with our eyes." 
 
 " It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said 
 Cedersholm, taking the chair to which Fairfax had 
 pointed. 
 
 From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a 
 cigar, which was refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it 
 was evident he had not been recognized. 
 
 " I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm 
 said. "A man like you who must adore his work can 
 easily imagine what this means."
 
 331 
 
 "For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I 
 know what it means/' 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. " What 
 was your infirmity ? " 
 
 "Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You 
 have not come to talk with me about the short and simple 
 annals of the poor/' 
 
 " All that which goes to make the education and 
 career of a great man," said Cedersholm, " is deeply in- 
 teresting, especially to a confrere. You have executed a 
 very great piece of work, Mr. Eainsford." 
 
 Fairfax made no response. 
 
 " You seem," said Cedersholm, " to doubt my sincerity. 
 You received my letter ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work ? " 
 
 The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered 
 from his former self that Tony was obliged to whip up 
 his memories, to call up all his past in order to connect 
 this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale, 
 meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, dis- 
 figured by his thick glasses, he seemed to have shrunk into 
 a little insignificant creature. No man could connect 
 him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax 
 answered it would depend upon circumstances. 
 
 " I expect you are very much overrun with orders, 
 Mr. Rainsford. I can understand that. I do not take 
 up a newspaper without reading some appreciative 
 criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed 
 his glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk hand- 
 kerchief. Then carefully replacing his spectacles, begged 
 Fairfax's pardon. " I have suffered dreadfully with these 
 infirm eyes," he said. 
 
 Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip 
 up his memories, and, once goaded, like all revengeful 
 and evil things, they came now quickly to bring back 
 to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice had 
 disappeared his nature was too sweet, too generous and 
 forgiving to brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. 
 He had been living fast; he had been working intensely; 
 he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes and sighed 
 and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of
 
 332 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 his studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, 
 instead, Cedersholm's rich, extravagant New York work- 
 shop rose up before his eyes. He saw himself again the 
 young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and 
 trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was 
 to be immortal labour; it had been given for this man 
 then, the greatest living sculptor, to adopt it for his own. 
 Now his heart began to beat fast. He clasped his hands 
 strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat. 
 
 "I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, 
 " a tremendous price." 
 
 " Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. " Talent 
 such as yours should be paid for generously. I used to 
 think so. I have commanded my price, Mr. Rainsford." 
 
 " I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax. 
 
 The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, 
 and continued 
 
 " The committee is very rich ; there are men of 
 enormous fortunes interested in the monument. They 
 can pay in reason," he added ; " of course, in reason 
 and as you are an American there would be in your mind 
 the ideal of patriotism." 
 
 " My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax. 
 
 Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him 
 lacking in courtesy and manners, began to peer at him 
 keenly in the rapidly deepening twilight. 
 
 " In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be under- 
 stood and approved of by the man who, in his judgment, 
 was important in the sculpture of the time, he continued 
 courteously, " there is no price too much to pay for art. 
 I have followed your work for years." 
 
 " Have you ? " said Antony. 
 
 " Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition 
 of the works of the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm 
 again took out his fine silk handkerchief and pressed it 
 to his eyes. " Since then I have looked for comment? 
 on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you 
 mentioned, I reminded the fact to my wife, who was an 
 admirer of your talent." 
 
 Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his 
 blood chilled. Mary ! Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. He 
 drew his breath hard, clasped one hand across his forehead,
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PRIDE 333 
 
 and still back in the far remote past he did not bid this 
 vision of Mary Cedersholm to linger. 
 
 " When I came back to Paris, I found you had justified 
 my faith in your work. The question of payment now, 
 in case you undertake this group, for instance, I dare 
 say the matter would be satisfactorily adjusted." 
 
 " I doubt it, Mr. Cedersholm." 
 
 Cedersholm, already interested in the man as a worker, 
 became now interested in his personality, and found him 
 curious, settled himself comfortably in his chair and swung 
 his monocle, which he still wore, by its string. He saw 
 the face of his host indistinctly, and his eyes wandered 
 around the vast, shadowy studio where the swathed 
 casts stood in the corners. The place gave him a twinge 
 of jealousy and awakened all his longings as an artist. 
 
 " It makes me acutely suffer," he said, " to come into 
 the workshop of the sculptor. Four years of enforced 
 
 idleness " Then he broke in abruptly and said, 
 
 " You have apparently settled already in your mind 
 decided not to accept this work for us. I think you are 
 determined not to meet us, Mr. Eainsford." 
 
 " The price," said Antony, leaning fully forward, his 
 blue eyes, whose sight was unimpeded, fixed on Ceders- 
 holm, " must be great enough to buy me back my lost 
 youth." 
 
 His companion laughed gently and said indulgently, 
 " My dear Mr. Rainsford." 
 
 " To buy me back my loss of faith in men's honour, 
 in human kindness, in justice, in woman's love." 
 
 " He is a true genius," Cedersholm thought to himself, 
 " just a bit over the line of mental balance." And he 
 almost envied Antony this frenzy, for he had always 
 judged himself too sane to be a great artist. 
 
 " It must buy me back three years of bitter struggle, 
 of degrading manual toil." 
 
 " My dear man," said the sculptor indulgently. " I 
 think I understand you, but no material price could ever 
 do what you ask. Money, unfortunately, has nothing 
 to do with the past; it can take care of the future 
 more or less, but the past is beyond repurchase, you 
 know." 
 
 It was growing constantly darker. The corners of the
 
 334 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 studio were deep in shadows, and the forms of Antony's 
 casts shone like spectres in their white clothes; the 
 scaffoldings looked ghostly and spirit-like. Cedersholm 
 sighed. 
 
 * Why have you come to me ? *' he heard Fairfax 
 ask in his cutting tone, and he understood that for some 
 reason or other this stranger was purposely impolite and 
 unfriendly to him. He had not even found Fairfax's face 
 familiar. There he sat before Antony, small, insignificant. 
 How often he had crossed Tony's mind in some ugly 
 dream when he had longed to crush him like a reptile. 
 Now that he stood before him in flesh and blood it was 
 astonishing to Fairfax to see how little real he was. 
 
 " I have been absent from France for six years," con- 
 tinued the Swede, and paused. . . . And Antony knew 
 he was going back in his mind over the past six years of 
 his married life with Mary. " I returned to Paris this 
 week, and wandered into the Salon and stood with a 
 crowd before your bas-relief. I stood for quite half an 
 hour there, I should think, and at least one hundred men 
 and women passed and paused as I had paused. I 
 listened to their comments. I saw your popularity and 
 your power, and saw how you touched the mass by the 
 real beauty of real emotion, by your expression of feeling 
 in plastic art. This is not often achieved nowadays, 
 Mr. Rainsford. Sculpture is the least emotional of all 
 the arts; literature, painting, and music stir the emotions 
 and bring our tears, but that calm, sublime marble, that 
 cold stone awes us by its harmonious perfection. Before 
 sculpture we are content to marvel and worship, and in 
 the ' Open Door ' you have made us do all this and made 
 us weep. I do not doubt that amongst those people many 
 had lost their own by death." He paused. It was go 
 dark now that the two men saw each other's face indis- 
 tinctly. In the shadows Cedersholm's form had softened; 
 the shadows blurred him before Fairfax's eyes; his voice 
 was intensely melancholy. " To every man and woman 
 who has lost your bas-relief is profoundly appealing. 
 Every one of us must go through that door. Your 
 conception, Mr. Rainsford, and your execution are 
 sublime." 
 
 Fairfax murmured something which Cedersholm did
 
 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 335 
 
 not make out. He paused a moment, apparently groping 
 in thought as he groped with his weak eyes, and as Fairfax 
 did not respond, he continued 
 
 " You spoke just now of the price we must pay you, 
 the price which you say must buy you back what I 
 judge you to mean by your progress, by these years of 
 labour and education, by your apprenticeship to art, and, 
 let me say, to life. My dear man, they have already 
 purchased for you your present achievement, your present 
 power. Everything we have, you know, must be paid for. 
 Some things are paid for in coin, and others in flesh and 
 blood -.-and tears. To judge by what we know of the 
 progress of the world in spiritual things and in art, it is 
 the things that are purchased by this travail of the spirit 
 that render eternal possessions, the eternal impressions. 
 No man who has not suffered as you have apparently 
 suffered, no man who has not walked upon thorns, could 
 have produced the ' Open Door.' Do not degrade the 
 value of your past life and the value of every hour of your 
 agony. Why, it is above price." He paused . . . his 
 voice shook. " It is the gift of God ! " 
 
 Antony's hands were clasped lightly together; they 
 had been holding each other with a grip of steel; now 
 they relaxed a bit. He bowed his head a little from its 
 proud hauteur, and said 
 
 " You are right ; you are right." 
 
 " Four years ago," continued the voice Cedersholm 
 had become to him now only a voice to which he listened 
 in the darkness " four years ago, if I had seen the 
 ' Open Door,' I would have appreciated its art as I 
 recognized the value of your figure which I bought at 
 the Exposition, but I could not have understood it; its 
 spiritual lesson would have been lost upon me. You do 
 not know me/' he continued, " and I can in no way 
 especially interest you. But these six years of my life, 
 especially the last two, have been my Garden of 
 Gethsemane." 
 
 He stopped. Antony knew that he had taken out the 
 silk handkerchief again and wiped his eyes. After a 
 second, Cedersholm said 
 
 " You must have lost some one very near you." 
 
 " My wife," said Antony Fairfax.
 
 336 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 The other man put out his hand, and he touched 
 Antony's closed hands. 
 
 " I have lost my wife as well ; she died two years ago." 
 
 Cedersholm heard Antony's exclamation and felt him 
 start violently. 
 
 "Your wife/' he cried, "Mary . . . dead . . . dead?" 
 
 " Yes. Why do you exclaim like that ? " 
 
 " Not Mary Faversham ? " 
 
 " Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. Did you know her ? " 
 
 With a supreme effort Antony controlled himself. 
 His voice suffocated him. 
 
 Dead ! He felt again the touch of her lips ; he heard 
 again her voice; he felt her arms around him as she held 
 him in Windsor " Tony, darling, go ! It is too late." 
 
 Oh ! the Open Door ! 
 
 Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had 
 produced in himself, and in his grief, did not notice that 
 Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs. Cedersholm in Paris. 
 
 " My wife was very delicate," he said. " We travelled 
 everywhere. She faded and my life stopped when she 
 died. To-day, when I saw the ' Open Door,' it had a 
 message for me that hrought me the first solace." Again 
 his hands sought Fairfax's. " Thank you, brother artist," 
 he murmured; "you have suffered as I have. You 
 understand." 
 
 From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit 
 the candle. Its pale light flickered up in the big dark 
 room like a lily shining in a tomb. He said, with a great 
 effort 
 
 " I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did 
 she never speak of me ? " 
 
 " Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. " She met 
 so many people in France; she was so surrounded. She 
 admired greatly the little figure I bought at the Exposi- 
 tion; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as a 
 coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned 
 having known you." 
 
 To' Antony this was the greatest proof she could 
 have given him of her love for him. That careful silence, 
 the long silence, not once speaking his name. He had 
 triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him. 
 Cedersholm murmured
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 337 
 
 " And you did that bas-relief a head silhouetted 
 against a lattice? It never left her room, but she never 
 mentioned it to me although I greatly admired it. It 
 was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer 
 at him through the candle light. " Curious," he con- 
 tinued, " curious." 
 
 And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never 
 forget his cry of " Mary Mary dead ! " And her silence 
 regarding his existence and his name, and that silence 
 and that cry would go together in the husband's memory. 
 
 The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who 
 came in calling 
 
 " Tony, Tony, old man." 
 
 Cedersholm rose, and Antony rose as well, putting out 
 his hand, saying 
 
 " I will undertake the work you speak of, if your 
 committee will write me confirming your suggestion. 
 And I leave the price to you, you know; you understand 
 what such work is worth. I place myself in your hands." 
 
 Dearborn had come up to them. " Tony," said Dear- 
 born, "what are you plotting in the dark with a single 
 candle?" 
 
 Fairfax presented him. "Mr. Cedersholm, Robert 
 Dearborn, the playwright, the author of ' All Roads 
 Meet/ ' ; 
 
 Dearborn shook the sculptor's hand lightly. He 
 wondered how this must have been for his friend. He 
 looked curiously from one to the other. 
 
 "'All Roads Meet/" he quoted keenly. " Good 
 name, don't you think? They all do meet somewhere" 
 -he put his hand affectionately on Tony's shoulder - 
 "even if it is only at the Open Door." Then he asked, 
 partly smiling, "And the beautiful Mrs. Cedersholm, is 
 she in Paris too ? " 
 
 " My wife," said Cedersholm shortly, " died two years 
 ago." 
 
 " Dead ! " exclaimed Robert Dearborn in a low tone 
 of regret, the tone of every man who regrets the passing 
 of a lovely creature that they have admired. "Dead! 
 I beg your pardon, I did not know. I am too heartily 
 sorry." 
 
 He put out his kindly hand. Cedersholm scarcely
 
 338 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 touched it. He was excited, overwhelmed, and began to 
 take his leave, to walk rapidly across the big room. 
 
 As the three men went together toward the door of 
 the studio, Fairfax turned up an electric light. It shone 
 brightly on them all, on Dearborn's grave, charming 
 face, touched with the news of the death of the woman 
 his friend had loved, on Cedersholm's almost livid face, 
 on his thick glasses, and on Antony limping at his side. 
 Cedersholm saw the limp, the unmistakable limp, the 
 heavy boot, his stature, his beautiful head, and in spite of 
 his infirmity he saw enough of his host to make him know 
 him, to make him remember him, and his heart, which 
 had begun to ache at Fairfax's cry of Mary, seemed to 
 die within him. He remembered the man whom he had 
 cheated out of his work and out of public acknowledg- 
 ment. He knew now what Fairfax meant by the re- 
 purchase of his miserable youth. He had believed 
 Antony Fairfax dead years ago. He had been told that 
 he was dead. Now he limped beside him, powerful, 
 clever, acknowledged, and moreover, there he stood beside 
 him with memories that Cedersholm would never know, 
 with memories that linked him with Mary Faversham- 
 Cedersholm. In an unguarded moment that cry had 
 escaped from the heart of a man who must have loved 
 her. He thought of the bas-relief that hung always 
 above her bed, and he thought of her silence, more eloquent 
 now to him even than Antony's cry, and that silence and 
 that cry would haunt him till the end, and the silence 
 could never be broken now that she had gone through the 
 Open Door. 
 
 Dearborn had not been with him all day until now. 
 He had come up radiant to Tony, and putting his hand 
 on his shoulder, said 
 
 " My dear Tony, I had to come in to-day just to 
 bring you a piece of news to tell you a rumour, rather. 
 The ' Open Door ' has been bought by the Government. 
 Your fame is made. I wanted to be the first to tell you. 
 I went into the Embassy for a little while to hear them 
 talk about you, and I can assure you that I did hear them. 
 The ambassador himself told me this news is official. 
 Every one will know to-morrow."
 
 .FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 339 
 
 They talked together until the morning light came 
 grey across the panes of the atelier, and the light was 
 full of new creations, of new ideals of fame and life, of 
 new ambitions and dreams for them both. Enthralled 
 and inspired each by the other, the two artists talked and 
 dreamed. Dearborn's new play was running into its 
 two-hundredth performance. He was a rich man. Now 
 Antony paused on the threshold of his studio, looking 
 back into the deserted workroom filling with the April 
 evening. In every corner, one by one, the visions rose 
 and floated. They became new statues, new creations, 
 indistinct and ethereal. Only the space, where the work 
 that had been carried away to the Salon had once stood, 
 was bare. As he shut the door he felt that he shut the 
 door for ever upon his past, upon his young manhood and 
 upon his youth.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN the early days of July he found himself once more 
 alone in the empty studio, where he had worked for twelve 
 months at the " Open Door." 
 
 The place where the huge marble had stood was empty ; 
 in its stead fame remained. 
 
 Looking back, it seemed now that his hardships had 
 not been severe enough. Had success really come? 
 Would it stay? Was he only the child of an hour? 
 Could he sustain? He recalled the little statuettes 
 which he had made out of the clay of the levee when he 
 was a boy. He remembered his beautiful mother's 
 praise 
 
 " Why, Tony, they are extraordinary, my darling." 
 
 And the constant fever had run through his veins all 
 his life. He had made his apprenticeship over theft and 
 death. He said to himself 
 
 " I shall sustain." 
 
 As he mused there, the praise he had received ringing 
 in his ears, he entertained fame and saw the shadow of 
 laurel on the floor, under the lamplight, where his marble 
 had stood, long and white. 
 
 He had made warm friends and bound them to him. 
 He loved the city and its beauties. His refinement and 
 sense of taste had matured. Antony knew that in his 
 soul he was unaltered, that he was marked by his past, 
 and that the scars upon him were deep. 
 
 He was very much alone; there was no one with 
 whom he could share his glory. Should he become the 
 greatest living sculptor, to whom could he bring 
 his honours, his joys? 
 
 For a long time Bella went with him in everything 
 he did. His visions were banished by the vivid thought 
 
 340
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 341 
 
 of her. "When he came into his studio at twilight he would 
 fancy he saw her sitting by the table. 
 
 She would lean there, not like a spirit-like woman 
 under the shaded lamp, sewing at little children's garments 
 . . . not like that! Nevertheless, Bella sat there as a 
 woman who waits for a return, the charming figure, the 
 charming head with its crown of dark hair, and the lovely, 
 brilliantly coloured face. Now there was nothing spirit- 
 like in Antony's picture. 
 
 Then again he would imagine that he saw her in the 
 crowd before his bas-relief at the Salon; he would select 
 some woman dressed in an unusually smart spring gown 
 and call her Bella to himself, until he saw her turn. 
 
 Once indeed, there, on the edge of the crowd, leaning 
 with her hands upon the handle of her parasol, he was sure 
 he saw her. The pose of the body was charming, the 
 turn of the head almost as haughty as his own mother's, 
 but the slenderness and the magnetism were Bella's own. 
 
 Antony chose this woman upon whom to fix his 
 attention, and he thought that when she would move 
 the resemblance would be gone. 
 
 The young girl suddenly altered her pose, and Antony 
 saw her fully; he saw the proud beautiful face, piquant, 
 alluring, a trifle sad; the brilliant lips, the colour in the 
 cheeks, like a snow-set peach, the wonderful eyes, could 
 belong to but one woman. 
 
 Separated from her by a little concourse of people, 
 Antony could only cry, " Bella ! " to himself. He started 
 eagerly toward the place where he had seen her, but she 
 vanished as the mirage on the desert's face. 
 
 What had he seen? A real woman, or only a trick of 
 resemblance ? 
 
 It was real enough to make him search the newspapers 
 and the hotel lists and the bankers. Now he could not 
 think of her name without a mighty emotion. If that 
 were Bella, she was too lovely to be true! She must be 
 his, no matter at what price, no matter what her life 
 might be. 
 
 A fortnight after he received in his mail a letter from 
 America. The address, "Mr. Thomas Rainsford," was 
 in a round full hand, a handsome hand; first he thought 
 it a man's. He opened it with slight interest. The
 
 342 FAIKFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 paper exhaled an intangible odour ; it was not perfume, 
 but a delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason 
 or other, the smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis 
 in New Orleans. He read 
 
 "Mr. Thomas Bainsford. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " This will seem to be a very extraordinary 
 letter, I know. I hardly know how to write such a letter. 
 When I was in Paris a few weeks ago, I stood before the 
 most beautiful piece of sculpture I have ever seen. I do 
 not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a more 
 deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not 
 what I think about it in that way, which is of interest. 
 It cannot be of any interest to you, as you do not know 
 me, nor is it for this that I am writing to you. Again, I 
 do not know how to tell you. 
 
 "Where did you get your ideas for your statue? 
 That is what I want to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, 
 very much like yours I should almost say identically 
 yours was made by my cousin, Antony Fairfax, in Al- 
 bany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar prize in 
 Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, 
 and no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For 
 this reason I write to ask you where you got your inspira- 
 tion for the ' Open Door.' It can be nothing to him that 
 his beautiful work has been more beautifully done by a 
 stranger, can do him no harm, but I want to know. Will 
 you write me to the care of the Women's Art League, 
 5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign 
 to answer this letter. Do not think that I am making 
 any reproach to you. It can be nothing to my cousin; 
 he is dead but it would be a comfort to me. Once again, 
 I hope you will let me hear from you. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " BELLA CAREW." 
 
 The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, 
 looked at the handwriting, held it before his eyes, to 
 which the tears rushed. He pressed the faintly scented 
 pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella. ... He stretched
 
 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 343 
 
 out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three 
 thousand miles 
 
 " Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some 
 day, Bella Carew." 
 
 It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful 
 bust of Bella Carew. 
 
 When he finished the "Open Door/' he said that he 
 would not work for a year, that he was exhausted bodily 
 and mentally; certainly he had lacked inspiration. But 
 the afternoon of the day on which he had read this letter 
 this letter that opened for him a future he set feverishly 
 to work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which 
 the critics have likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, 
 and other masters. He modelled from memory, guided 
 by his recollections of that picturesque face he had seen 
 under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before 
 his bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagina- 
 tion, with hope and new love, from old love too; told 
 himself he had fallen in love with Bella the first night 
 he had seen her, when she had comforted him about hia 
 heavy step. 
 
 Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he 
 put all his ideal of what a woman's face should be. He 
 fell in love with his creation, in love with the clay that 
 he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the 
 studio from which had been removed his study for the 
 tomb, and this represented a living woman. It seemed 
 almost to become flesh and blood under his ardent hand. 
 " Bella ! " he called to her as he smoothed the lovely cheek 
 and saw the peach bloom under it. 
 
 " Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair 
 along her neck, and remembered the wild, tangled 
 forest that had fallen across his face when he carried 
 her in his arms during their childish romps. " Honey 
 child," he murmured as he modelled and moulded the 
 youthful lines of the mouth and lips and stood yearning 
 before them, all his heart and soul in his hands that made 
 before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the 
 very conception and expression of what he wanted his 
 wife to be. 
 
 They say that men have fallen in love with that beau- 
 tiful face of Bella Carew as modelled by Fairfax,
 
 344 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 Arch and subtle, tender and provoking, distinguished, 
 youthful, alluring, it is the most charming expression of 
 young womanhood that an artist's hand could give to the 
 world. 
 
 "Beloved/' he murmured like a man half in sleep 
 and half awakening, and he folded the lines of her bodice 
 across her breast and fastened them there by a single 
 rose. 
 
 With a sweep of her lovely hair, with an uplift of the 
 corners of her beautiful lips, with the rose at her breast, 
 Bella Carew will charm the artistic world so long as the 
 clay endures.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ON the promenade deck of one of the big steamers, as it 
 pushed, around into its pier, a man stood in his long 
 overcoat, his hands in his pockets, hoping to avoid the 
 reporters whom he had reason to suppose were ready to 
 make him their prey. 
 
 He was entering New York Harbour at an early 
 hour in the morning. It was November, and over the 
 river and over the city hung the golden haze. If the 
 lines of the objects, if the shore and buildings were crude, 
 their impression was not so to him. To and fro the ferries 
 plied from shore to shore, and their whistles and the 
 whistles of the tugs spoke shrilly and loudly to the morning, 
 but there was nothing nasal or blatant to him in the 
 noises. He found the scene, the light of the morning, 
 the greeting of the city as it stirred to life, enchanting. 
 He had gone away from it six years ago, a broken-hearted 
 man, and it seemed now as though he had made his history 
 in an incredibly short time. Down in the hold of the 
 boat, in their cases, reposed his sculptures, some thirty 
 statues and models that he had brought for his exposition 
 in New York. He had come back celebrated. His visions 
 and his dreams so far had been fulfilled. 
 
 Once again all his past, all his emotions, his tears and 
 aspirations, culminated in this hour. This was his return, 
 but not as Antony Fairfax. He did not know that he 
 should ever take his old name again. He had made the 
 name of Thomas Rainsford famous, and the fact gave him 
 a singular tender satisfaction, linking him with a dear 
 man who had loved him. He felt almost as though his 
 friend were resurrected or given a new draught of immortal 
 
 life every time the name was said. 
 
 345
 
 346 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 A young man came up to him, pencil in hand, his 
 look eager and appealing, and Fairfax recognized a re- 
 porter in search of a good newspaper story. He under- 
 stood the poor clothes, the dogged determination. 
 
 " You want a story ? " he said. " Well, sit down." 
 
 The newspaper man, highly delighted with the sculptor's 
 sympathy and understanding, wrote his interview with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Fairfax talked for five minutes, and said at the close, 
 " I had not intended to be interviewed. But you are a 
 rising man ; you have secured me against my will." 
 
 The reporter put up his pad. " Thank you, Mr. 
 Rainsford; but this is so impersonal. I would like some 
 of your views on art. They tell me you have had a tough 
 fight for success and existence." 
 
 " Many of us have that," said Fairfax. 
 
 "Your ideals, sir?" 
 
 The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first 
 interview. Fairfax smiled. 
 
 " Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, 
 the labour of the last six years. Go to my exposition, and 
 you will see my ideals." 
 
 As the other took his leave Antony saw himself again, 
 poor, unknown, as he had set foot in New York. There 
 was a deputation on the wharf to meet him from the 
 Academy of Design, and he walked down the gang-plank 
 alone, leaving no one behind him in France who stood to 
 him for family, and he would find no one in America who 
 should mean to him hearth and home. 
 
 They had taken rooms for him in the old Hotel Plaza 
 overlooking 59th Street; there, toward the afternoon of 
 the first day, he found himself at three o'clock, alone in 
 his parlour overlooking Central Park. 
 
 The trees were still in leaf. November was mild and 
 golden. The air of America, of the city which had once 
 been unfriendly to him, and which now opened its doors, 
 blew in upon him through the open window like a caress. 
 He looked musingly at the little park where he had 
 wandered with Gardiner and Bella, on the Sunday holiday, 
 when Bella had told him " all things she wanted to do were 
 wicked." 
 
 Amongst his statues he had brought over was one
 
 FAIEFAX AND HIS PRIDE 347 
 
 lately bought by France and presented to the Metropolitan 
 Museum. It was the marble of a little girl mourning 
 over a dead blackbird. Everything in the city was con- 
 nected now with Bella Carew. 
 
 There was a sheaf of invitations on the table from 
 well-known New Yorkers, invitations to dinners, invi- 
 tations to lecture, and he knew that he would be taken 
 into the kindliest heart of New York. Well, if work can 
 give a man what he wants, he had worked enough for it; 
 there was no doubt about that. It had been nearly a 
 year since his interview with Cedersholm. He brought 
 with him casts and statues for the triumphal arch in 
 Boston, and he intended taking a studio here and con- 
 tinuing his work in America, but he had no plans. In 
 spite of his success and the prices he could command, his 
 thoughts and his mind were all at sea. His personality 
 had not yet developed to the point where he was at peace. 
 He knew that such peace could only come to him through 
 the companionship of a woman. 
 
 No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax 
 now. 
 
 Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. 
 If Bella Carew were a rich and brilliant heiress it would 
 probably alienate him from her. His need called for a 
 woman who could work at his side with a kindred interest, 
 a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose apprecia- 
 tion and criticism could not leave him cold. 
 
 What would Bella Carew, when he found her as he 
 should prove herself to be ? Spoiled she was, no doubt, 
 mistress for several years of a large fortune, coquette, 
 flirt; of these things he was partly sure, because she had 
 not married. Children with her great promise develop 
 sometimes into nonentities, but Bella, at sixteen, had 
 surpassed his wildest prophecies for her. Bella, as he 
 had seen her on the outskirts of the crowd, had driven him 
 mad. He knew that it had been she; there was no doubt 
 about it in his mind. Now to find her, to see what she 
 had become. 
 
 He knew that Bella, when she opened the morning 
 papers the next day if she were in New York would 
 discover who he was. There would be descriptions of 
 him as a lame sculptor; there would be reproductions
 
 348 
 
 of his " Open Door " ; there would be the fact that he was 
 born in New Orleans; that he assumed the name of 
 Bainsford. Now that he had no longer any secret to 
 keep, his own name, Antony Fairfax, would appear. Bella 
 would not fail to know him.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HE took his gloves and his hat and started out. He 
 drove to the address which Bella had given him, where 
 her letters were to be sent. It was a studio building, 
 and the woman stenographer at the general desk knew 
 that Miss Carew was absent in Europe and had not 
 returned. 
 
 This was a blow; the woman saw the disappointment 
 on his face. 
 
 " Miss Carew's letters ? " he asked. 
 
 She pointed to the empty box. They were all sent to 
 her to Europe. 
 
 He wandered in the little office whilst the woman did 
 her work. He glanced around him. On the walls there 
 were framed sketches; there were busts in plaster on 
 pedestals. 
 
 It struck him as strange that Bella should have her 
 letters sent to her to a studio. He wanted to question 
 the secretary, hesitated, then asked 
 
 " You know Miss Carew ? " 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " I reckon she patronizes this academy." 
 
 It would not have been surprising if she had given it 
 some large donation. 
 
 The stenographer repeated the word, " Patronizes ? 
 Miss Carew works here when she is in America; she has 
 a small studio here." 
 
 " Works here ? Do you mean she paints ? " 
 
 The woman smiled. "Yes; she has been studying in 
 Florence. I expect her home every day." 
 
 Fairfax still lingered, drawing his soft gloves through 
 his hands. 
 
 " There's nothing to do, then, but to wait," he smiled 
 
 349
 
 350 FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE 
 
 on her his light smile. He turned to go, hesitated. The 
 temptation was too strong. 
 
 " Miss Carew paints portraits ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the stenographer, "beautiful portraits." 
 
 He smiled, biting his lips. He remembered the parallel 
 lines, the reluctant little hand drawing them across the 
 board. 
 
 " No more parallel lines, Cousin Antony." 
 
 He did not believe that she painted beautiful portraits. 
 He would have loved to see her work, oh, how much! 
 There must be some of it here. 
 
 " There is nothing of hers here, I suppose ? " 
 
 He went across the little room to the door. He could 
 hardly bear to go from here, from the only place that had 
 any knowledge of Bella as far as he knew. 
 
 He took out his card, scribbled his address upon it, 
 handed it to the stenographer, without asking anything 
 of her but to let him know when she would come back. 
 
 The woman nodded sympathetically. 
 
 " It is unusual for a great heiress, like Miss Carew, to 
 paint portraits." 
 
 " She is not a great heiress ; Mr. Carew lost all his 
 money two years ago. I think Miss Carew is almost quite 
 poor." 
 
 A radiant look came over Antony's face. " Thank 
 you very much indeed," he said. " I count on you to 
 take care of this little commission for me," and he went 
 out of the room in ecstasy, closing the door behind him.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HE left his hansom at the entrance of the park, at 72nd 
 Street. 
 
 Tfiiere, on the corner, stood his uncle's house, a monu- 
 ment, to him, of the past. His heart beat hard as he 
 looked at the unfriendly dwelling from whose doors he 
 had rushed on the night of the winter blizzard, when, 
 as it had seemed to him then, little Gardiner's spirit 
 rushed with him out into the storm. From those windows 
 Bella had waved her hand. 
 
 How his spirits had risen high with hope, the night 
 on which he had first gone up those steps. It was on 
 that night Bella had said to him, "Why, you have got 
 a light step and a heavy step, Cousin Antony. I never 
 heard any one walk like that before." 
 
 He tramped into Central Park, taking his way to 
 the Metropolitan Museum. At the door he was informed 
 that the museum was closed. He gave his card, and, 
 after a few words with the man in charge, Thomas 
 Rainsford the sculptor was let in and found himself, to 
 all intents and purposes, alone. He wandered about the 
 sculptures, wondering where the statue of little " Bella " 
 would be placed. 
 
 The rooms were delightfully restful. He chose a bench 
 and sat down, resting and musing. 
 
 In front of one of the early Italian pictures stood an 
 easel with a copy exposed upon it to his view. A re- 
 production of a sixteenth-century Madonna with a child 
 upon her breast. The copy showed the hand of an adept 
 in colour and drawing. Antony looked at it with keen 
 pleasure, musing upon the beauty of the child. 
 
 Afterwards he rose and went into the Egyptian room, 
 lingering there. But when he came back the painter was 
 there before her easel, and Antony stood in the doorway 
 to watch her at work. 
 
 351
 
 352 FAIEFAX AND HIS PEIDE 
 
 She wore a long brown linen painting apron that 
 covered her form, evidently a slender form, evidently a 
 young form. She painted ardently, with confidence and 
 absorption. As Antony watched her, her pose, her 
 ardour, the poise of her body, the lovely dark head, the 
 gestures, the fire of her, brought all of a sudden his past 
 rushing back to him. The sight of her came to him with a 
 thrilling, wonderful remembrance. He came forward, his 
 light step and his heavy step falling on the hard wood 
 floors of the museum. 
 
 She turned before he was close to her, her palette and 
 her brushes in her hand. She stood for a moment im- 
 movable, then gave a little cry, dropped her palette and 
 brushes on the floor, grew white, then blushed deeply 
 and held out both her hands to him. 
 
 "Cousin Antony!" 
 
 He took her hands in his, could not find his voice even 
 to say her name. He heard her say 
 
 "They told me you were dead! I thought you had 
 died long ago I thought another man had taken your 
 genius and your fame." 
 
 She spoke fast, with catching breath, in a low vibrant 
 tone that he remembered how he did remember it ! 
 His very life seemed to breathe on her lips in the sound 
 of her voice. " Flow gently, sweet Af ton " the music 
 was here here all the music in the world ! 
 
 " I know who you are now ; I saw it in the paper. 
 I read it this morning. I saw your picture, and I knew." 
 She stopped to catch her breath deeply. " Oh, I'm so glad ! " 
 
 She was more beautiful than he had dreamed she 
 would be; brilliant, bewitching, and the flowers of his 
 past clustered round her. 
 
 "I heard them falling through the rooms, the light 
 step and the heavy step." 
 
 Slowly by both her hands which he held he drew her 
 toward him, and as he held her cheek against his lips he 
 heard her murmur 
 
 "Back from the dead! Cousin Antony. . . . No, 
 just Anton v ! " 
 
 " Little cousin ! " he said. " Bella ! " 
 
 THE END
 
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