CHAPTER XXII
THE SERPENT'S COIL
Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to BerthaHaney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she hadever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women werealike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay whereinthe libertine demands novelty--where struggle is essential, and toconquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.
He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an oldand broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easilywon. Her air of demure reserve piqued him--pleased him. "She is no sillykitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in fora big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will gofar, and I will be her guide--unless I have lost my cunning. She willshare her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."
He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tendersmile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that Ihave very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at thegallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be inplace. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own thiswork-shop are out; they'll be in soon."
"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."
"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."
The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases uponthe walls--not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay inAmerica being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own."I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railwayfare."
He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't youcome with us for a ride?"
"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."
"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bringyou."
"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. Idespise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America--exceptyou. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."
"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a fewminutes, and I'm going."
He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"
"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outsidethe hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."
"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."
"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."
He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of mypictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think betterof the West--of America. I feel that you will find something in mypictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, headded: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage--"
"No, he didn't."
"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anythingbut the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you--you areso aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. Youwould spur a man to big things."
They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by hisvoice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked roundhim. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold anddepressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den inParis. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiestdays have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."
He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerfulmanner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see hispaintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your wordand dine with you--perhaps this very night."
"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonderat the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.
He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to abelief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artistfeelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost aslonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, butHaney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair foryou," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.
Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked ofthe West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and hisessentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish thatthey might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," heinsisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With yourbeauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, youcould reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worthmore to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anythingin this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show youParis."
Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbingof her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctivedistrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners andcowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back ingrowing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all thebarriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of theeagle--now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray seato slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willingto sit beside her and talk--he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.
The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and histheories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portraitin the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flatteringnot to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joinedthem in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had knownHumiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry'samusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"
He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the littlegallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other menhave been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've goneon refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line tocolor, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only nowand then that a man, or a woman _feels_ what I'm after--and so I live. Ihold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."
He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what shethought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of themhome he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," hesharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yetused: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused ofpatronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spiteof all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderfulartist?
She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I'vegot a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."
"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones onwhich my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."
Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"
"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit--they aretoo 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to showthem to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.
And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."
His gentle _camaraderie_, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when hetook her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did notst
umble at the crossing she was stirred--not as Ben's hand had movedher, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderfulthat she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in themidst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the companyof one of the chief artists of the world?
Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of thecity, and explained to her that American dealers had no realappreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the samein Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect ofthese densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."
The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and outwith friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha intothe farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the otherpaintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall andpartly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the innertemple. Enter."
She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not welllighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.
Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to showmy masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothingunusual in the experience.
It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits ofexcelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent oversome canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one withcare. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stooda large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back witheyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was inthe new Salon--here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited inthis rotten town."
Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of anude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and tothe Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caughther breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and adefence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the femaleform; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" Andthen, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love ofbeauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,he placed another canvas before her--something so unrefined, so animal,so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any onelooking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it wasa degenerate demon--an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist inthe world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.
Bertha stared at it--fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Herthinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldenedhim.
Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breathupon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the samelook she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stoodrevealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunkentramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall andburst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture ofaffrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her inwonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composingherself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walkedslowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.
It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was abrute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason forthe great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the firsthe had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of CharlesHaney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed moreignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself atthe cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his lifein Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homageand trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hateand disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, hissweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss asvile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?
She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with droopinghead. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrathas she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the wholeglittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longedfor the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband asone who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.
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