CHAPTER XIX.
The sun, glittering along the avenue, shimmering on the rustling gownsof the women and smoothing the coats of the horses, smote Orson Vanegently; the fairness of the day flooded his soul with a tide ofwell-being. In the air and on the town there seemed some subtleradiance, some glamour of enchantment. The smell of violets was allabout him. The colors of new fashions dotted the vision like a paintingby Hassam; a haze of warmth covered the town like a kiss.
His thoughts, keyed, in some strange, sweet way, to all the pleasant,happy, pretty things in life, brought him the vision of JeannetteVanlief. How long, how far away seemed that day when she had been at hisside, when her voice had enveloped him in its silver echoes!
As carriage after carriage passed him, he began to fancy Jeannette, inall her roseate beauty, driving toward him. He saw the curve of herankle as she stepped into the carriage; he dreamed of her flower-likeattitude as she leaned to the cushions.
Then the miracle happened; Jeannette, a little tired, a little pale, alittle more fragile than when last he had seen her, was coming towardhim. A smile, a gentle, tender, slightly sad--but yet so sweet, sosweet!--a smile was on her lips. He took her hand and held it and lookedinto her eyes, and the two souls in that instant kissed and became one.
"This time," he said--and as he spoke all that had happened since theyhad pretended, childishly, on the top of the old stage on the Avenue,seemed to slip away, to fade, to be forgotten--"it must be a realluncheon. You are fagged. So am I. You are like a breath oflilies-of-the-valley. Come!"
They took a table by an open window. The procession of the town nearlytouched them, so close was it. To them both it seemed, to-day, a happy,joyous, fine procession.
"Will you tell me something?" asked the girl, presently, after they hadlaughed and chattered like two children for awhile.
"Anything in the world."
"Well, then--are you ever, ever going to face that dreadful mirroragain?"
He smiled, as if there was nothing astonishing in her knowledge, herquestion.
"Do you want me not to?"
She nodded.
He put his hand across the table, on one of hers. "Jeannette," hewhispered, "I promise. Why do you care? It is not possible that youcare because, because--Jeannette, will you promise me something, too?"
They have excellent waiters at the Mayfair. They can be absolutely blindat times. This was such a time. The particular waiter who was servingVane's table, took a sudden, rapt interest in the procession on theavenue.
Jeanette crumbled a macaroon with her free hand.
"You have my hand," she pouted.
"I need it," he said. "It is a very pretty hand. And very strong. Ithink it must have lifted all my ills from me to-day. I feel nothing butkindness toward the whole world. I could kiss--the whole world."
"Oh," said Jeannette, pulling her hand away a little, "you monster! Youare worse than Nero."
"Do you think my kisses would be so awful, then? Or is it simply thepiggishness of me that makes you call me a monster. That's not the rightway to look at it. Think of all the dreadful people there are in theworld; think how philanthropic you must make me feel if I want to kisseven those."
"Ah, but the world is full of beautiful women."
"I do not believe it," he vowed. "I do not think God had any beauty leftafter he fashioned--you."
He was not ashamed, not one iota of the grossness of that fable. Hereally felt so. Indeed, all his life he never felt otherwise than thattoward Jeannette. And she took the shocking compliment quite serenely.
"You are absurd," she said, but she looked as if she loved absurdity."Please, may I take my hand?"
"If you will be very good and promise--"
"What?"
"To give me something in exchange."
"Something in exchange?"
"Yes. The sweetest thing in the world, the best, and the dearest. You,dear, yourself. Oh! dearest, if I could tell you what I feel.Speech--what a silly thing speech is! It can only hint clumsily,futilely. If I could only tell you, for instance, how the world hassuddenly taken on brightness for me since you smiled. I feel atenderness to all nature. I believe at heart there is good in everyone,don't you? To-day I seem to see nothing but good. I could find you alovable spot in the worst villain you might name. I suppose it is thestream of sweetness that comes from you, dear. Why can't this hour lastforever. I want it to, oh, I want it to!"
"It is," she whispered, "an hour I shall always remember."
"Yes, but it must last, it can't die; it sha'n't! Jeannette, let us makethis hour last us our lives! Can't we?"
"Our lives?" she whispered.
"Yes, our lives. This is only the first minute of our life. We mustnever part again. I seem to have been behind a cloud of doubt anddistrust until this moment. I hardly realize what has happened to me. Islove so refining a thing as all this? Does it turn bitter into sweet,and make all the ups and downs of the world shine like one level,beautiful sea of tenderness? It can be nothing else, but that--my love,our--can I say our love, Jeannette?"
The sun streamed in at the window, kissing the tendrils of her hair andbringing to their copper shimmer a yet brighter blush. The day, with allits perfume, the splendor of its people, the riot of color of its gowns,the pride and pomp of its statues and its fountains, flushed the mostsecret rills of life.
"It is a marvel of a day," said Jeannette.
"A marvel? It is an impossible day; it is not a day at all--it is merelythe hour of hours, the supreme instant, the melody so sweet that it mustbreak or blind our hearts. You are right, dear, it is a marvelous hour.You make me repeat myself. Can we let this hour--escape, Jeannette?"
"It goes fast."
"Fast--fast as the wind. Fleet as air and fair as heaven are theinstants that bring happiness to common mortals. But we must hold thehour, cage it, leash it to our lives."
"Do you think we can?"
She had used the "we!" Oh yes, and she had said it; she had said it; hesang the refrain over to himself in a swoon of bliss.
"I am sure of it," he urged. "Will you try?"
"You are so much the stronger," she mocked.
"Oh--if it depends on me--! Try? I shall succeed! I know it. Such loveas mine cannot fail. If only you will let me try. That is all; justthat.
"I wish you luck!" she smiled.
"You have said it," he jubilated, "you have said it!" And then,realizing that she had meant it all the time, he threatened her with alook, a shake of the head--oh, you would have said he wanted to punishher in some terrible way, some way that was filled with kisses.
"Jeannette," he whispered, "I have never heard you speak my name."
"A pretty name, too," she said. "I have wondered if I might not spoil itin my pronunciation."
"You beautiful bit of mockery, you," he said, "will you condescend torepeat a little sentence after me? You will say it far more prettilythan I, but perhaps you will forgive my lack of music. I am only a man.You--ah, you are a goddess."
"For how long?" she asked. "Men marry goddesses and find them clay,don't they?"
"You are not clay, dear, you are star-dust, and flowers, and fragrance.There is not a thought in your dear head that is in tune with mereclay. But listen! You must say this after me: I--"
"I--"
"Love--"
"Love--"
"You--"
"You--"
"Jeannette--"
Her lips began to frame the consonant for her own name, but at sight ofthe pleading in his gaze she stilled the playfulness of her, andfinished, shyly, but oh, so sweetly.
"Orson."
The dear, delightful absurdities of the hour when men and women telleach other they love, how silly, and how pathetic they must seem to theall-seeing force that flings our destinies back and forth at its will!Yet how fair, how ineffably fair, those moments are to their heroes andheroines; how vastly absurd the rest of the sad, serious world seems tosuch lovers, and how happy are the mortals, after all, w
ho throughfastnesses of doubt and darkness, come to the free spaces where theheart, in tenderness and grace, rules supreme over the intellect, andkeeps in subjection, wisdom, ignorance and all the ills men plague theirminds with!
When they left the Mayfair together their precious secret was anythingbut a secret. Their dream lay fair and open to the world; one must havebeen very blind not to see how much these two were in love with eachother. They had gone over every incident of their friendship; they hadstirred the embers of their earliest longings; they had touched theirgrowing happiness at every point save where Orson's steps aside had hurthis sweetheart's memory. Those periods both avoided. All else they madesubject for, oh, the tenderest, the most lovelorn conversationthinkable. It was enough, if overheard, to have sickened the whole dayfor any ordinary mortal.
One must, to repeat, have been very stupid not to see, when they issuedupon the avenue, that they shared the secret that this world appears tohave been created to keep alive. Love clothed them like a visiblegarment.
Luke Moncreith could never have been called blind or stupid. He saw thetruth at once. The truth; it rushed over him like a salt, bitter, acridsea. He swallowed it as a drowning man swallows what overwhelms him. Oneinstant of terrible rage spun him as if he had been a top; he facedabout and was for making, then and there, a scene with this shamelesslyhappy pair. But the futility of that struck him on the following second.He kept his way down the avenue, emotions surging in him; he felt thathis passions were becoming visible and conspicuous; he took a turninginto one of the streets leading eastward. A sign of a wineshop flashedacross his dancing vision, and he clung to it as to an anchor or apoison. He found a table. He wanted nothing else, only rest, rest. Thewine stood untasted on the bare wood before him. He peered, through it,into an unfathomable mystery. This chameleon, this fellow Vane--how wasit possible that he had won this glorious, flower-like creature,Jeannette? This man had been, as the fancy took him, a court fool, asporting nonentity, and a blatant mummer. And what was he now? By thelooks of him, he was, to-day--and for how long, Moncreith wondered--avery essence of meekness and sweetness; butter would not think ofmelting in his mouth. What, in the devil's name, what was this riddle!He might have repeated that question to himself until the end of hislife if the door had not opened then and let in Nevins.
Nevins ordered the strongest liquor in the place. The sideboard onVanthuysen Square might be empty, but Nevins had still the money. As forthe gloomy old Vane house, he really could not stand it any longer. Hetoasted himself, did Nevins, and he talked to himself.
"'An now," he murmured, thickly, "'ere's to the mirror. May I never seeit again as long as I 'as breath in my body and wits in me 'ead. Which,"he observed, with a fatuous grin, "aint for long. No, sir; me nerves isthat a-shake I aint good for nothin' any more. And I asks you, is itany wonder? 'Ere's Mr. Vane, one day, pleasant as pie. Next day, comesin, takes a look at that dratted mirror of the Perfessor's, and takes to'igh jinks. Yes, sir, 'igh jinks, very 'igh jinks. 'As pink tea-fightsin his rooms, 'angs up pictures I wouldn't let me own father see--no,sir, not if 'e begged me on his bended knee, I wouldn't--and wears whatyou might call a tenor voice. Then--one day, while you says 'One for hisNob' 'e's 'imself again. An' it's always the mirror this, an' the mirrorthat. I must look out for it, an' it mustn't be touched, and nobody mustcome in. And what's the result of it all? Me nerves is gone, and meself-respect is gone, and I'm a poor miserable drunkard!"
He gulped down some of his misery.
"Join me," said a voice nearby, "in another of those things!"
Nevins turned, with a swaying motion, to note Moncreith, whose hand waspointing to the empty glass before Nevins.
"You are quite right," he went on, when the other's glass had beenfilled again, "Mr. Vane's conduct has been most scandalous of late. Yousay he has a mirror?"
All circumspection had long since passed from Nevins. He was simply anindividual with a grievance. The many episodes that, in his filmy mind,seemed to center about that mirror, shifted and twisted in him to wherethey forced utterance. He began to talk, circuitously, wildly, rapidly,of the many things that rankled in him. He told all he knew, all he hadobserved. From out of the mass of inane, not pertinent ramblings,Moncreith caught a glimmer of the facts.
What a terrible power this must be that was in Orson Vane's possession!Moncreith shuddered at the thought. Why, the man might turn himself, inall but externals--and what, after all, was the husk, the shell, thebody?--into the finest wit, the most lovable hero of his time; he mightfare about the world wrecking now this, now that, happiness; he mightwin--perhaps he actually had, even now, won Jeannette Vanlief? If hehad, if--perhaps there was yet time! There was need for sharp, desperateaction.
He plunged out of the place and toward Vanthuysen Square. Then heremembered that he could not get in. He aroused Nevins from his brutishdoze. He dragged him over the intervening space. Nevins gave him thekey, and dropped into one of the hall chairs. Moncreith leaped upstairs,and entered the room where the mirror stood, white, silent, stately.
He contemplated everything for a time. He conjured up the picture he hadbeen able to piece together from the rambling monologues of Nevins. Hewondered whether to simply smash in the mirrors--he would destroy themall, to make sure--by taking a chair-leg to them, or whether he wouldcarefully pour some acid over them.
The simpler plan appealed most to him. It was the quickest, the mostthorough. He took a little wooden chair that stood by an ebonescritoire, swung it high in the air and brought it with a shatteringcrash upon the face of the Professor's mirror.
But there was more than a mere crash. A deadly, sickening, stifling fumearose from the space the clinking glass unbared; a flame burst out,leaped at Moncreith and seized him. The deadly white smoke flowedthrough the room; flame followed flame, curtains, hangings, screenswent, one after the other, to feed the ravenous beast that Moncreith'sblow had liberated. The room was presently a seething furnace thatrattled in the cage of the walls and windows. Moncreith lay, choked withthe horrid smoke, on the floor. The flames licked at him again andagain; finally one took him on the tip of its tongue, twisted him about,and shriveled him to black, charred shapelessness.
The windows fell, finally, out upon the street below. The fire sneakeddownward, laughing and leaping.
When the firemen came to save Orson Vane's house, they found a grinning,sodden creature in the hall.
It was Nevins. "That settles the mirror!" was all he kept repeating.
CHAPTER XX.
The Professor shivered a little when Jeannette came to him with herbudget of wonderful news. She told him of her engagement. He patted herhead, and blessed her and wished her happiness. Then she told him of hervisit to Vane's house. It was at that he shivered.
He wondered if Vane had taken her image from that fatal glass. If hehad, how, he wondered, would this experiment end? Surely it could nothave happened; Jeannette was quite herself; there was no visiblediminution of charm, of vitality.
When Vane arrived, presently, the Professor questioned him. The answerbrought the Professor wonder, but he did not count it altogether acalamity. There could be no doubt that Orson Vane was now wearingJeannette's sweet and beautiful soul as a halo round his own. Well,mused Vanlief, if anything should happen to Jeannette one can always--
"Oh, father!"
Jeannette burst into the room with the morning paper from town. "Orson'shouse is burnt to the ground. And who do you think is suspected? LukeMoncreith! They found his body. Read it!"
The Professor took the report and scanned it. There could be no doubt;the mirror, the work of his life, was gone. He could never fashion onelike it. Never--Yet--He looked at the two young people at the window,whither they had turned together, each with an arm about the other.
"What a marvel of a day!" Jeannette was saying.
"The days will all be marvels for us," said Orson.
"The days, I think, must have souls, just as we have. Some days seem tohave such dark, such bitter th
oughts.
"Yes, I think you are right. There are days that strike one as havingsouls; others that seem quite soulless. Beautiful, empty shells, some ofthem; others, dim, yet tender, full of graciousness."
"Orson!"
"Sweetheart!"
"Do you know how wonderfully you are changed? Do you know you oncetalked bitterly, as one who was full of disappointments anddisenchantments?"
"You have set me, dear, in a garden of enchantment from which I meannever to escape. The garden is your heart."
Something glistened in the Professor's eyes as he listened. "God, inhis infinite wisdom," he said, in a reverent whisper, "gave her so muchof grace; she had enough for both!"
The Imitator: A Novel Page 19