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Alexandre Dumas, PŠre - "La Tulipe Noire [abridged]"

Mary Roberts Rinehart - "The Street of Seven Stars"

Rafael Sabatini - "Captain Blood"

Mary Roberts Rinehart - "DANGEROUS DAYS"

A Face Illumined

E >> E. P. Roe >> A Face Illumined




"It would be hard to resist the temptation to hear anything about
dear old Mr. Eltinge," said Ida, taking the artist's arm, and
feeling as if she were being swept away on a shining tide.

"You WERE glad to see me, Miss Mayhew, and you can't deny it," Van
Berg began exultantly.

"You almost crushed my hand, and it aches still," was her demure
reply.

"Well, that was surely the wound of a friend."

"You are very good to speak to me at all, after all that's happened,"
she said in a low tone and with downcast face.

"What a strange coincidence! That is exactly what I was thinking
of you. I almost feared you would treat me as you did Sibley. How
much good it did me to see him slinking away like a whipped cur! I
never realized before how perfectly helpless even brazen villainy
is in the presence of womanly dignity."

"Why, were you present then?" she asked, with a quick blush.

"Not exactly present, but I saw your face and his, and a stronger
contrast I scarcely expect to see again."

"You artists look at everything and everybody as pictures."

"Now, Miss Mayhew, you are growing severe again. I don't carry
the shop quite as far as that, and I have not been looking at you
as a picture at all this evening. I shall make known the whole
enormity of my offence, and the if I must follow Sibley, I must,
but I shall carry with me a little shred of your respect for telling
the truth. I had a faint hope that you and your father would come
to-night, and I was looking for you, and when you came I watched
you. I could not resist the temptation of comparing the Miss Mayhew
I now so highly esteem and respect, with the lady I first met at
this place."

"Oh, Mr. Van Berg," said Ida, in a low, hurt tone, "I don't think
that was fair to me, or right."

"I am confessing and not excusing myself, Miss Mayhew. I once very
justly appeared to you like a prig, and now I fear I shall seem
a spy; but after our visit to that old garden together, and your
frankness to me, I feel under bonds to tell the whole truth. You
said we were fated to misunderstand each other. I think not, for
if you ever permit me to be your friend I shall be the frankest
one you ever had;" at these words he felt her hand trembling on
his arm, and she would not look up nor make any reply.

"Well," said he, desperately, "I expect Sibley's fate will soon
be mine. I suppose it was a mean thing to watch you, but it would
seem a meaner thing to me not to tell you. I was about to speak
to you, Miss Mayhew, when by another odd coincidence the orchestra
commenced playing music that I knew would remind you of me. I
was gaining the impression before you left the country that as you
came to think the past all over, you had found that there was more
against me than you could forgive, or else that I was so inseparably
associated with that which was painful that you would be glad to
forget the one with the other. I must admit that this impression
was greatly strengthened by the expression of your face, and I
almost decided to leave the place without speaking to you. But I
found I could not, and--well, you know I did not. You see I'm at
your mercy again."

Ida was greatly relieved, for she now learned that he had discovered
nothing in his favor, and that she was still mistress of the
situation.

"I do not think you are very penitent; I fear you would do the same
thing over again," she said.

"Indeed, Miss Mayhew, when I first met you here I thought I would
always do the right and proper thing, and I fear I thought some
things right because I did them. I've lived a hundred years since
that time, and am beginning to find myself out. Didn't you think me
the veriest prig that ever smiled in a superior way at the world?"

"I don't think I shall give you my opinion," she replied, averting
her face to hide a blush and a laugh.

"No need. I saw your opinion in your face when you looked down at
your programme half an hour since."

"You are mistaken; I was thinking of myself at that moment, for I
could not help remembering what a fool I must have appeared to you
on that occasion."

He looked at her in surprise. "Miss Burton was right," he ejaculated,
"I never shall understand you."

"Was she talking about me?" asked Ida, in a low tone.

"Yes, and she spoke of you in the most complimentary way, as you
did of her. Why the mischief you two ladies do not become the
warmest friends is beyond me. Sit down here a little while, Miss
Mayhew, for you are growing tired;" and she was very glad to comply.

As she made no effort to continue the conversation he resumed, "You
haven't told me what my punishment is to be."

"Are you so anxious to be punished?" she asked, looking up shyly
at him.

"Well, my conscience troubles me greatly, and I feel I ought to do
something for you in the way of expiation."

"And so I gather that anything done for me would be such severe
penance that your conscience would be appeased."

"Now, Miss Mayhew," he replied, looking earnestly into her face,
"tell me truly, do you gather any such impression from my words
and manner?"

But she kept her eyes resolutely on the ground, and said demurely,
"Such was the obvious meaning of your words."

"Do you know why I am in the city?" he asked after a moment.

"I have not presumed to think why."

"Perhaps I can make a little inroad in your indifference when I
tell you that I have spent several hours in my studio working on
your picture, and that I intend to work the remainder of the week
so as to have it ready for you Saturday evening."

She looked up now with a face radiant with surprise and pleasure,
"O Mr. Van Berg, I did not dream of your taking so much trouble
for me."

"That's a small payment on an old debt. What can I do for you
while I am in the city, to atone for my rudeness?"

She looked at him hesitatingly and wistfully a moment.

"I know you wish something, but fear to ask it," he said, gently,
"and I'm sorry to remember I've done so little to inspire your
confidence."

"Mr. Van Berg," she said in a low tone, looking earnestly at him
while she spoke, so as to learn from his expression how he received
her request. "Your kindness does tempt me to ask a favor. Please
remember I'm acting from an impulse caused by this unexpected talk
we are having, and pardon me if I overstep the bounds of reserve
or suggest a task that you might very naturally shrink from as
disagreeable."

"I pledge you my word at once to do what you wish."

"No, don't do that. Wait till you hear all. If when it comes easily
and naturally in your way you will do a little towards helping me
keep father the man he can be, my gratitude will be deeper than you
can understand. I am studying him very carefully and I find that
any encouraging recognition from those who have known his past, has
great weight with him. At the same time it must be very unobtrusive
and come as a matter of course as it were. You gave him your society
one Sunday morning last June in a way that did him a great deal
of good, and if I had only seconded your efforts then, everything
might have been different. I can never remember that day without
a blush of shame. I can't help the past, but my whole soul is now
bent on making amends to father. I fear, however, my deep solicitude
has led me to ask more than good taste can sanction."

"Miss Mayhew," said the artist, eagerly, "this is one of the best
moments of my life. You could not have made such a request unless
you trusted me, unless you had fully forgiven me all the wrong I
have done you. I doubted if I could ever win your friendship, but
I think I can claim a friend's place already in your esteem, since
you are willing to let me share in so sacred a duty. I renew my
pledge with double emphasis."

He never forgot the smile with which she rewarded him, as she said,
in a low tone, "That's better than I thought. You are very kind
to me. But I'm staying too long from father."

"We'll understand each other eventually," he said gently. "Now I
know why tears were in your eyes before the symphony was over."

"No you don't," she whispered to herself.

As they took their seats by Mr. Mayhew he remarked with a smile,
"Mr. Van Berg must have had a long budget of news frm your good
old friend."

Ida looked at the artist in dismay, and was still more embarrassed
as she saw a sudden flash of mirth and exultation in his eyes. But
he turned to Mr. Mayhew and replied, promptly, "Two pictures are
growing out of my visits to Mr. Eltinge and his garden. The one
that is for Mr. Eltinge contains a portrait of Miss Mayhew as I
saw her reading to him. I wish you and your daughter would visit
my studio to-morrow and see the sketches, and if Miss Mayhew would
give me one or two sittings, I could make a much better picture for
Mr. Eltinge than now is possible, and I'm anxious to do the very
best I can for him."

"I would be very glad to come," said Mr. Mayhew, and his pleased
expression confirmed his words. "Will a visit before I go down
town be too early?"

"Not at all. I am always at work early."

"Well, Ida, does Mr. Eltinge miss your visits very much? It's
selfish in me to let you stay in the city."

"He does indeed, sir," said the artist answering for her. "He
talked to me continually about her yesterday, although I can't say
I tried to change the subject."

"Father, Mr. Van Berg shall not shield my short-comings," said Ida,
with crimson cheeks. "I forgot to ask about Mr. Eltinge. To tell
the truth, we were talking of old times. I met Mr. Van Berg here
last June and I made a very bad impression on him."

"And I at the same time made a worse impression on Miss Mayhew,"
added the artist.

"Well," said her father, with a doubtful smile and a puzzled glace
from one to the other, "one almost might be tempted to believe that
you had been revising your impressions."

"Mine has not been revised, but changed altogether," said Van Berg,
decisively.

"Come, father, let us go at once lest Mr. Van Berg's impressions
change again," and her mirthful glance as she gave him her hand
in parting revealed a new element in her character. She was not
developing the cloying sweetness of honey.





Chapter XLVIII. Ida's Temptation.




If Van Berg had given thought to himself that evening as he did to
Ida Mayhew he might have discovered some rather odd phenomena in
his varying mental states. Earlier in the summer he had been a
very deliberate and conscientious wooer. He had leisurely taken
counsel of his reason, judgment, and good taste; he mentally
consulted his parents, and satisfied himself that Miss Burton would
have peculiar charms for them, and so it had come to seem almost
a duty as well as a privilege to seek that young lady's hand. The
sagacity and nice appreciation of character on which he had so
greatly prided himself led to the belief that fortune in giving him
a chance to win such a maiden had been very kind. That his pulse
was so even and his heart had so little to say in the matter was
only a proof that he did not possess an unbalanced head-long nature
like that of Stanton, who had soon become wholly mastered by his
passion. He had at one time reasoned it all out to his satisfaction,
and believed he was paying his suit to the woman he would make his
wife in an eminently proper way. but now that he was merely trying
to obtain a young girl's friendship, the cool and masterful poise
which he had then been able to maintain, was apparently deserting
him. He might have asked himself if he ever remembered being
such an enthusiastic friend before. He might have considered how
often he had kept awake and counted the hours till he should meet
a friend from whom he had just parted. That these obvious thoughts
and contrasts did not occur to him only proved that he was smitten
already by that blindness which a certain spiritual malady usually
occasions in its earlier stages.

As for poor Ida, she still felt that her little boat was being
carried forward by a shining tide--whither she dared not think.
She had come to the city to escape from the artist, and as a result
she might spend long hours alone with him in his studio and see
far more of him than if she had remained in the country. She had
not sought it--she had not even dared to hope or dream of such a
thing; but now that this exquisite cup of pleasure had been pressed
to her very lips by other hands she could not refuse it.

Her father had watched her keenly but furtively since she had been
his companion, and until the artist had accosted her the evening
before had not been able to understand the depression which she
could not disguise wholly from him; but the light and welcome that
flashed into her face when greeting Van Berg had suggested her
secret, and all that followed confirmed his surmise. The truth
was plainer still when she came down to their early breakfast the
next morning with color in her cheeks and a fitful light of excitement
in her eyes.

As he realized the truth he fairly trembled with apprehension and
longing. "Oh, if Ida could only marry that man I would be almost
beside myself with joy," he thought; "but I fear it is rash even
to hope for such a thing. Indeed, I myself am the obstacle that
would probably prevent it all. The Van Bergs are a proud race,
and this young man's father knows me too well. O God! I could be
annihilated if thereby my child could be happy."

"Ida," he said, hesitatingly, "perhaps I had better not go with you
this morning. I imagine Mr. Van Berg asked me out of politeness
rather than from any wish to see me and--and--I think I had better
not go."

She looked up at him swiftly, and the rich color mantled her face,
for she read his thoughts in part. But she only said quietly:

"Then I will not go."

"That would not be right or courteous, Ida," but I think you young
people will get on better without me."

"You are mistaken, Father; I never intend to get on without you,
and any friend of mine who does not welcome you becomes a stranger
from that hour. But I think you are doing Mr. Van Berg an injustice.
At any rate we will give him a chance to show a better spirit."

"Ida, my child, if you only knew how gladly I would sacrifice myself
to make you happy!"

She came to him and put her arms around his neck and looking up
into his face said, with the earnestness and solemnity of a vow,
"I will take no happiness which I cannot receive as your loving
daughter. As long as you are the man you have been since Sunday I
will stand proudly at your side. If you should ever be weak again
you will drag me down with you."

He held her from him and looked at her as a miser might gloat over
his treasure.

"Ida, my good angel," he murmured.

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, trying to hide her feelings by a little
brusqueness, "I'm as human a girl as there is in this city, and will
try your patience a hundred times before the year is out. Come,
let us go and visit this proud artist. He had better beware, or
he may find an expression on my face that he won't like if I should
decide to give him a sitting."

But the artist did like the expression of Ida's face as he glanced
up from his work with great frequency and with an admiring glow in
his eyes that was anything but cool and business-like. Even her
jealous love had not detected a tone or act in his reception of
her father that was not all she could ask, and she had never seen
the poor man look so pleased and hopeful as when he left the studio
for his office. There had not been a particle of patronage in
Van Berg's manner, but only the cordial and respectful courtesy of
a younger gentleman towards an elderly one. Mr. Mayhew had been
made at home at once, and before he left, the artist had obtained
his promise to come again with his daughter on the following morning.

"His bearing towards father was the perfection of good breeding,"
thought Ida, and it would seem that some of the gratitude with
which her heart overflowed found its way into her tones and eyes.

"You look so pleasantly and kindly, that you must be thinking of
Mr. Eltinge," said Van Berg.

"You are not to paint my thoughts," said Ida, with a quick flush.

"I wish I could."

"I'm glad you can't."

"You do puzzle one, Miss Mayhew. On the day of our visit to the
old garden your thoughts seemed as clear to me as the water of the
little brook, and I supposed I saw all that was in your mind. But
before the day was over I felt that I did not understand you at
all."

"Mr. Van Berg, I'm astonished you are an artist."

"Because of the character of my work?"

"No, indeed. But such a wonderful taste for solving problems
suggests a metaphysician. I think you would become discouraged
with such tasks. Just think how many ladies there are in the world,
and I'm sure any one of them is a more abstruse problem than I am."

The artist looked up at her in surprise and bit his lip with a faint
trace of embarrassment, but he said, after a moment, "But it does
not follow that they are interesting problems."

"You don't know," she replied.

"And never shall," he added. "I do know, however, that you are a
very interesting one."

"I didn't agree to come here to be solved as a problem," she said
demurely, but with a mirthful twinkle in her eyes; "I only promised
you a sitting for the sake of Mr. Eltinge."

"Two sittings, Miss Mayhew."

"Well, yes, if two are needful."

"By all the nine muses! you do not expect me to make a good picture
from only two sittings?"

"You know how slight is my acquaintance with any of those superior
divinities, and in this sacred haunt of theirs I feel that I should
express all my opinions with bated breath; but truly, Mr. Van Berg,
I thought you could make a picture from the sketch you made in the
garden."

"Yes, I could make A picture, but every sitting you will give enables
me to make a better picture, and you know how much we both owe to
Mr. Eltinge."

"I'm learning every day how much, how very much, I owe to him,"
she said, earnestly.

"Then for his sake you will promise to come as often as I wish you
to," was his eager response, and it was so eager that she looked
up at him in surprise.

"Really, Mr. Van Berg, I am becoming bewildered as to what that
little sketch I asked you to make may involve."

"Will it be so wearisome for you to come here?" he asked, with a
look of disappointment that surprised her still more.

"I didn't say that," was her quick reply; "and I promise to come
to-morrow. Perhaps you will find that sufficient."

"I know it won't be sufficient."

"Cousin Ik has told me that you are very painstaking and conscientious
in your work."

"Thanks to Cousin Ik. When I get a chance to paint such a picture
as this I do, indeed, wish to make the most of it."

"But how long must Mr. Eltinge wait for it?"

"I think we can send it to him as a Christmas present."

"We? You, rather, will send it."

"No, WE; or rather, in giving me the sittings you give Mr. Eltinge
all that makes the picture valuable to him."

Ida's cheeks began to burn, for the artist's words suggested a
powerful temptation that; in accordance with her impetuous nature,
came in the form of an impulse rather than an insidious and lurking
thought. The impulse was to accept of the opportunities he pressed
upon her, and, if possible, win him away from Jennie Burton. At
first it seemed a mean and dishonorable thing to do, and her face
grew crimson with shame at the very thought. Van Berg looked
at her with surprise. Conscious himself that while he meant that
Mr. Eltinge should profit richly from her visits, it was not by
any means for the sake of the old gentleman only that he had been
requesting her to come so often, his own color began to rise.

"She begins to see that my motives are a little mixed, and that is
what is embarrassing her," he thought as he bent over his work to
hide his own confusion.

"Mr. Van Berg, I'm getting tired of sitting still," Ida exclaimed.
"It's contrary to my restless disposition. May I not make an exploring
tour around your studio? You have no idea what a constraint I've
been putting on my feminine curiosity."

"I give you a 'carte-blanche' to do as you please. Have you much
curiosity?"

"I'm a daughter of Eve."

"Well, I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a good deal of
'old Adam' in me," and he felt that as she then appeared she could
tempt him to almost anything.

Now that her back was towards him she felt safer, and her mellow
laugh trilled out as she said, "We may have to dub this place a
confessional rather than a studio of you talk in that way."

"If I confessed all my sins against you, Miss Mayhew, it would,
indeed, be a confessional." He spoke so earnestly that she gave
him a quick glance of surprise.

"There is no need," she said, hesitatingly, "since I have given you
full absolution," and she suddenly became interested in something in
the farthest corner of the apartment. After a moment she added,
"If I am to come here I must say to you again, as I did on the
day I so disgusted you by my behavior in the stage--you must let
by-gones be by-gones."

It was now the artist's turn to laugh, and his merriment was
so hearty and prolonged that she turned a vexed and crimson face
towards him and said, "I think it's too bad in you to laugh at me
so."

"Miss Mayhew, I assure you I'm not laughing at you at all. But your
words suggest a good omen. Didn't that stage teach you that fate
means us to be good friends in spite of all you can do? Before we
met in that car of fortune I had been trying for a week or more to
make your acquaintance, and made a martyr of myself in the effort.
I played the agreeable to nearly every lady in the hotel, and
perspired on picnics and boating parties that I did not enjoy. I
played croquet and other games till I was half bored to death, and
all in the effort to produce such a genial atmosphere of enjoyment
and good-feeling that you would thaw a little towards me; but you
wouldn't speak to me, nor even look at me. At last I gave up in
despair and went off among the hills with my sketch-book, and when
returning that blessed old stage overtook me. Wasn't I pleased
when I found you were a fellow-passenger! and let me now express
my thanks that you looked so resolutely away from me, for it gave
me a chance to contrast a profile in which I could detect no fault
with the broad, sultry visage of the stout woman opposite me. And
then, thank heaven, the horses ran away. Whoever heard of stage
horses running away before? It was a smile of fortune--a miracle.
Submit to destiny, Miss Mayhew, for it's decreed that we should be
good friends," and he laughed again in huge enjoyment of the whole
scene.

In spite of herself Ida found his humor contagious and irresistible,
and she laughed also till the tears came into her eyes.

"Mr. Van Berg," she exclaimed, "I ought to be indignant, or I ought
to be ashamed to look you in the face. I don't know what I ought
to do, only I'm sure it isn't the proper thing at all for me to be
laughing in this way. I think I'll go home at once, for I'm only
wasting your time.

His answer was not very relevant, for he said impetuously, "Oh,
Miss Ida, I would give five years of my life to be able to paint
your portrait as you now appear, for the picture would cure old
melancholy himself and fill a prison-cell with light."

"I won't come here any more if you laugh at me so," she said,
putting on her hat.

"See," he said, "I'm as grave as a judge. I will never laugh
AT you, but I hope to laugh WITH you many a time, for to tell you
the truth the experience has reminded me of the 'inextinguishable
laughter of the Gods.' Please don't go yet."

"If I must come so often my visits must be brief."

"Then you will come?"

"I haven't promised anything except for to-morrow. Good-morning."

"Let me walk home with you."

"No, positively. You have wasted too much time already."

"You will at least shake hands in token of peace and amity before
we part?"

"Oh, certainly, if you think it worth the while when we are to meet
so soon again. Oh! you hurt me. You did that once before."

His face suddenly became grave and even tender in its expression,
as he said, in a low, deep voice, "More than once, Miss Ida. Don't
think I forget or forgive myself because you treat me so generously."

She would not look up and meet his eyes, but replied, in tones that
trembled with repressed feeling, "I could forgive anything after
your manner towards father this morning. Never think I can forget
such favors," and then she snatched away her hand and went swiftly
out. Her tears fell fast as she sought her home by quiet streets
with bowed head and vail drawn tightly down, and she murmured:

"I cannot give him up--I cannot, indeed, I cannot. If I lose him
it must be because there is no help for it."

Then conscience uttered its low, faint protest and her tears fell
faster still.

When reaching her room she threw herself on the sofa and sobbed,
"Would it be so very, very wrong to win him if I could? she can't
love him as much as I do. Why, I was ready to die even to win his
respect, and now in these visits he gives me a chance to win his
love. Is he pledged to Miss Burton yet? If he is, I do not know
it. He does seem to care for me--there is often something in his
face and tone that whispers hope. If he loves her as I love him
he could not be here in New York all this week. But it's her love
that troubles me--I've seen it in her eyes when he was not observing,
and I fear she just worships him. Alas, he gave her reason. His
manner has been that of a lover, and no one--he least of all--would
think of flirting with Jennie Burton. But does he lover her so
deeply that I could not win him if I had a chance? Would it be very
wicked if I did? Must I give up my happiness for her happiness?
I came to New York to get away from danger and temptation and here
I am right in the midst of it. What shall I do! Oh, my Saviour,
I'm half afraid to speak to thee about this."

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