The White Shield

by Myrtle Reed

  The Dweller in Bohemia

  The single lamp in "the den" shone in a distant corner with a subduedrosy glow; but there was no need of light other than that which camefrom the pine knots blazing in the generous fireplace.

  On the rug, crouched before the cheerful flame, was a woman, with herelbow on her knee and her chin in the palm of her hand.

  There were puzzled little lines in her forehead, and the corners of hermouth drooped a little. Miss Archer was tired, and the firelight, everkind to those who least need its grace, softened her face into that ofa wistful child.

  A tap at the door intruded itself into her reverie. "Come," she called.There was a brief silence, then an apologetic masculine cough.

  Helen turned suddenly. "Oh, it's you," she cried. "I thought it was thejanitor!"

  "Sorry you're disappointed," returned Hilliard jovially. "Sit down onthe rug again, please,--you've no idea how comfortable you looked,--andI'll join you presently." He was drawing numerous small parcels fromthe capacious pockets of his coat and placing them upon a convenientchair.

  "If one might enquire--" began Helen.

  "Certainly, ma'am. There's oysters and crackers and parsley androquefort, and a few other things I thought we might need. I knowyou've got curry-powder and celery-salt, and if her gracious ladyshipwill give me a pitcher, I'll go on a still hunt for cream."

  "You've come to supper, then, I take it," said Helen.

  "Yes'm. Once in a while, in a newspaper office, some fellow is alloweda few minutes off the paper. Don't know why, I'm sure, but it has nowhappened to me. I naturally thought of you, and the chafing dish, andthe curried oysters you have been known to cook, and----"

  Helen laughed merrily. "Your heart's in the old place, isn't it--at theend of your esophagus?"

  "That's what it is. My heart moves up into my throat at the mere sightof you." The colour flamed into her cheeks. "Now will you be good?" hecontinued enquiringly. "Kindly procure for me that pitcher I spoke of."

  He whistled happily as he clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, andHelen smiled to herself. "Bohemia has its consolations as well as itstrials," she thought. "This would be impossible anywhere else."

  After the last scrap of the feast had been finished and the dishescleared away, Frank glanced at his watch. "I have just an hour and ahalf," he said, "and I have a great deal to say in it." He placed herin an easy chair before the fire and settled himself on a cushion ather feet, where he could look up into her face.

  "'The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things,'" quotedHelen lightly.

  "Don't be flippant, please."

  "Very well, then," she replied, readily adjusting herself to his mood,"what's the trouble?"

  "You know," he said in a different tone, "the same old one. Have younothing to say to me, Helen?"

  Her face hardened, ever so slightly, but he saw it and it pained him."There's no use going over it again," she returned, "but if youinsist, I will make my position clear once for all."

  "Go on," he answered grimly.

  "I'm not a child any longer," Helen began, "I'm a woman, and I want tomake the most of my life--to develop every nerve and faculty to itshighest and best use. I have no illusions but I have my ideals, and Iwant to keep them. I want to write--you never can understand how muchI want to do it--and I have had a tiny bit of success already. I wantto work out my own problems and live my own life, and you want me tomarry you and help you live yours. It's no use, Frank," she ended, notunkindly, "I can't do it."

  "See here, my little comrade," he returned, "you must think I'm aselfish beast. I'm not asking you to give up your work nor your highestand best development. Isn't there room in your life for love and worktoo?"

  "Love and I parted company long ago," she answered.

  "Don't you ever feel the need of it?"

  She threw up her head proudly. "No, my work is all-sufficient. There isno joy like creation; no intoxication like success."

  "But if you should fail?"

  "I shall not fail," she replied confidently. "When you dedicate yourwhole life to a thing, you simply must have it. The only reason for afailure is that the desire to succeed is not strong enough. I ask nofavours--nothing but a fair field. I'm willing to work, and work hardfor everything I get, as long as I have the health and courage to workat all."

  He looked at her a long time before he spoke again. The firelightlingered upon the soft curves of her throat with a caressingtenderness. Her eyes, deep, dark, and splendid, were shining withunwonted resolution, and her mouth, though set in determined lines, hada womanly sweetness of its own. Around her face, like a halo, gleamedthe burnished glory of her hair.

  For three long years he had loved her. Helen, with her eyes on thingshigher than love and happiness, had persistently eluded his wooing. Hisearnest devotion touched her not a little, but she felt her instinctivesympathy for him to be womanish weakness.

  "This is final?" he asked, rising and standing before her.

  She rose also. "Yes, please believe me--it _must_ be final; there isno other way. I don't want lovers--I want friends."

  "You want me, then, to change my love to friendship?"

  "Yes."

  "Never to tell you again that I love you?"

  "No, never again."

  "Very well, we are to be comrades, then?"

  She gave him her hand. "Yes, working as best we may, each with theunderstanding and approval of the other; comrades in Bohemia."

  Some trick of her voice, some movement of her hand--those triflesso potent with a man in love--beat down his contending reason. Witha catch in his breath, he crushed her roughly to him, kissed herpassionately on the mouth, then suddenly released her.

  "Women like you don't know what you do," he said harshly. "You holda man captive with your charm, become so vitally necessary to himthat you are nothing less than life, enmesh, ensnare him at everyopportunity, then offer him the cold comfort of your friendship!"

  He was silent for a breathless instant; then in some measure, hisself-control came back. "Pardon me," he said gently, bending over herhand. "I have startled you. It shall not occur again. Good night andgood luck--my comrade in Bohemia!"

  Helen stood where he had left her until the street door closed and theecho of his footsteps died away. The fire was a smouldering heap ofashes, and the room seemed deathly still. Her cheeks were hot as witha fever, and she trembled like one afraid. It was the first time hehad crossed the conventional boundary, and he had said it would be thelast, but Love's steel had struck flame from the flint of her maidensoul.

  "I wish," she said to herself as she put the room in order, "that Ilived on some planet where life wasn't quite so serious."

  For his part he was pacing moodily down the street, with his handsin his pockets. Several times he swallowed a persistent lump in histhroat. He could understand Helen's ambition, and her revolt againstthe conventions, but he could not understand her point of view. Evennow, he would not admit that she was wholly lost to him. What she hadsaid came back to him with convincing force: "When you dedicate yourwhole life to a thing, you simply must have it."

  "We'll see," he said to himself grimly, "just how true her theory is."

  Months passed, and Helen worked hard. She was busy as many trustingsouls have been before with "The Great American Novel." She was puttinginto it all of her brief experience and all of her untried philosophyof life. She was writing of suffering she had never felt, and of loveshe could not understand.

  She saw Frank now and then, at studio teas and semi-Bohemiangatherings, at which the newspaper men were always a welcome feature.There was no trace of the lover in his manner, and she began to doubthis sincerity, as is the way with women.

  "So this is Bohemia?" he asked one evening when they met in a studio inthe same building as Helen's den.

  "Yes,--why not?"

  "I was thinking it must be a pretty poor place if this is a fair sampleof the inhabitants," he returned easily.

  She flush
ed angrily. "I do not see why you should think so. Here areauthors, musicians, poets, painters and playwrights--could one be inbetter company?"

  "So this is Bohemia?" he asked one evening when they metin a studio in the same building as Helen's den._From the Drawing by Dalton Stevens_]

  He paid no attention to her ironical question. "Yes," he continued, "Isee the authors. One is a woman--pardon me, a female--who has writtena vulgar novel, and gained a little sensational notoriety. The otheris a man who paid a fifth-rate publishing house a goodly sum to issuewhat he calls 'a romance.' The musicians are composers of 'coon songs'even though the African Renaissance has long since waned, and membersof theatrical orchestras. The poets have their verses printed inperiodicals which 'do not pay for poetry.' The only playwright presenthas written a vaudeville sketch--and I don't see the painters. Are theypainting billboards?"

  "Perhaps," said Helen, with exquisite iciness, "since you find us allso far beneath your level, you will have the goodness to withdraw. Yoursuperiority may make us uncomfortable."

  Half in amusement, and half in surprise, he left her in a manner whichwas meant to be coldly formal, and succeeded in being ridiculous.

  After a while, Helen went home, dissatisfied with herself, and for thefirst time dissatisfied with the Bohemia over the threshold of whichshe had stepped. Always honest, she could not but admit the truth ofhis criticism. Yet she was wont to judge people by their aspirationsrather than by their achievements. "We are all workers," she saidto herself, as she brushed her hair. "Every one of those people isaspiring to what is best and highest in art. What if they have failed?Not fame, nor money, but art for art's dear sake. I am proud to be oneof them."

  * * * * *

  In the course of a few weeks the novel was finished, and she subjectedit to careful, painstaking revision. She studied each chapter singly,to see if it could not be improved, even in the smallest detail. Whenthe last revision had been made, with infinite patience, she wassatisfied. She wanted Frank to read it, but was too proud to make thefirst overtures towards reconciliation.

  The first three publishers returned the manuscript with discouragingpromptness. Rejected short stories and verse began to accumulate on herdesk. Sunday newspaper specials came home with "return" written inblue pencil across the neatly typed page. Courteous refusal blanks camein almost every mail, and still Helen did not utterly despair. She hadput into her work all that was best of her life and strength, and itwas inconceivable that she should fail.

  Two more publishing houses returned her novel without comment, and witha sort of blind faith, she sent it out again. This time, too, it cameback, but with a kindly comment by the reader. "You cannot write untilyou have lived," was his concluding sentence. Helen sat stiff and stillwith the letter crumpled in her cold fingers.

  Slowly the bitter truth forced itself upon her consciousness. "Ihave failed," she said aloud, "I have failed--failed--failed." A drytearless sob almost choked her, and with sudden passionate hatred ofherself and her work, she threw her manuscript into the fire. Theflames seized it hungrily. Then, someway, the tears came--a blessedrush of relief.

  Hilliard found her there when he came at dusk, with a bunch of rosesby way of a peace offering. The crumpled letter on the floor and theshrivelled leaves of burned paper in the fireplace afforded him allthe explanation he needed. He sat down on the couch beside her and tookher trembling hands in his.

  The coolness of his touch roused her, and she sighed, burying hertear-stained face in the roses. "I have failed," she said miserably, "Ihave failed."

  He listened without comment to the pitiful little story of hard workand bitter disappointments. "I've given up everything for my art," shesaid, with a little quiver of the lips, "why shouldn't I succeed in it?"

  The temptation to take her in his arms temporarily unmanned him. Heleft her abruptly and stood upon the hearth rug.

  "You are trying to force the issue," he said quietly. "You ar'n'tcontent to be a happy, normal woman, and let art take care of itself.You should touch life at first hand, and you are not living. Youare simply associating with a lot of hysterical failures who callthemselves 'Bohemians.' Art, if it is art, will develop in whatevercircumstances it is placed. Why shouldn't you just be happy and let thework take care of itself? Write the little things that come to you fromday to day, and if a great utterance is reserved for you, you cannotbut speak it, when the time comes for it to be given to the world."

  Helen stared at him for a moment, and then the inner tension snapped."You are right," she said, sadly, instinctively drawing toward him. "Iam forcing the issue."

  They stood looking into each other's eyes. Helen saw the strong,self-reliant man who seemed to have fully learned the finest art ofall--that of life. She felt that it might be possible to love him, ifshe could bring herself to yield the dazzling vista of her career. Allunknowingly, he had been the dearest thing in the world to her for somelittle time. Bohemia's glittering gold suddenly became tinsel. Therecame a great longing to "touch life at first hand."

  He saw only the woman he loved, grieved, pained, and troubled;tortured by aspirations she could not as yet attain, and stung by aself-knowledge that came too late. A softer glow came into Helen's faceand the lover's blind instinct impelled him toward her with all hissoul in his eyes.

  "Sweetheart," he said huskily.

  Helen stopped him. "No," she said humbly, "I must say it all myself.You are right, and I am wrong. I must live before I am a woman and Imust be a woman before I can be an artist. I have cared for you for along time, but I have been continually fighting against it--I see itall now. I will be content to be a happy woman and let the work takecare of itself. Faulty, erring and selfish, I see myself, now, but willyou take me just as I am?"

  The last smouldering spark of fire had died out and left the room indarkness. Helen's face showing whitely in the shadow was half pleading,and wholly sweet.

  Speechless with happiness, he could not move. A thousand thingsstruggled for utterance, but the words would not come. She waited amoment, and then spoke again.

  "Have I not humbled myself enough? Is there anything more I can say? Ishould not blame you if you went away, I know I deserve it all." Theold tide of longing surged into the man's pulses again, and broke thespell which lay upon him. With a little cry, he caught her in his arms.She gave her lips to his in that kiss of full surrender which a womangives but once in her life, then, swinging on silent hinges, the doorsof her Bohemia closed forever.

  A Minor Chord