Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a nude 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 to the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of beauty, 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 one looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was a degenerate demon – an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in the 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. Her thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened him.
Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked slowly 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 a brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more ignoble, 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 at the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?
She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.
CHAPTER XXIII
BERTHA'S FLIGHT
Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her a letter from Humiston – a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected you to see them as I painted them – in pure artistic delight. You misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."
Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben – these men she knew and respected. Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.
She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to go home – to-day."
"All right, Bertie, I'm ready – or will be, as soon as I pick up the old father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"
"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."
"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared, impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next express."
The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a military camp.
Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her, and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon them.
As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."
"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."
"We can put it in," said Bertha.
"We can't do without you now," added Mart.
Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."
Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."
Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't assumed – "
"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it right with you – and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."
"Sure, Mart – only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to do. He's too handy – if anything."
"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you in on the mine."
Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay with me; my wants are few."
Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all your life? Tell us your ambition – maybe we can help you."
He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my profession it was different – I was always being cursed for presumption."
"What was your profession?" asked Haney.
"I studied law – and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.
Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong way."
Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as you have been doing – as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."
"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled – you're adjutant-general of the Haneys' forces."
After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."
Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius, won't ye do that?'"
Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto, but in the spirit of the trained nurse.
This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights, with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and very remote.
Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me down – I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."
"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?" Bertha said.
"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."
"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."
"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls, and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."
"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.
The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely, troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the limited express.
"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man of his own level, and they held long confabulations together – the colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window, dreaming of the past.
As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those high places.
Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time – by reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of New York – it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor. I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.
There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far from anything æsthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was about to leave the East for the West – perhaps to abandon the town for the village – she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay. New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.
That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes, especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and especially of music and the drama – all these came back one by one to claim a place beside her peaks and cañons, sharing the glory of the purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto loved so single-heartedly and so well.
She saw Sibley now for what it was – a village almost barren of beauty – a good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to do here – in the East. I can't stand Sibley."
She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of Ben – but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul, with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive. She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and wise.
Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father hurried away in joyous relief.
"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like palin' a red onion to him – nothing more."
The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him. The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees – which no one was allowed to climb.
Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden – and this was onerous to the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again. However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed. "We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."
But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."
Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer. Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it – snappin' and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."
His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said: "'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing mind."
They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father – a man inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.
There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't put it on a charity basis – just sold the house on long time."
"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"
Lucius did not appear to hear.
They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf, the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing. "Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.
"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.
Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe, here's Mrs. Haney."
Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows, but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my arm – my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared, 'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and the West.'"
Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our machine."
"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop and let art wag."
Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised – "
"Of course I did – that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now; I'll work to-night."
"To-night is the Hall's circus party."
"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool, clear air."
Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go fishing or swimming.
"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained – "took a contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for money – now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep, can't breathe country air – had to work all day Sunday."
"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the children's summer suits."
"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year when I was a child – and that was a buff."
All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my! how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"
"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the 'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"
"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind. "I'll secure one this week."
Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as school-children – even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous powers of money – it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.
Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and crystalline.
On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter far away.
Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."
His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination – not because she cared to see Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him, angered him.
She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to do?"
"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure, he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she is to fulfil her place in the world – and be happy."
She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative – home decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know several highly successful women decorators – but I wouldn't advise that work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."
"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."
Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly romantic to us – the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a visit."
Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of pleading; then she answered: "Yes – but then, you see, it isn't really mine – it's the Captain's."
"Yours by marriage."
"That's what people say – but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"
What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know Frank Congdon – he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men, is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a gambler."
She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a saloon – when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career, and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of the saloon money – and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do. I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin' straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too, though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."
"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."
She ignored the implied compliment and went on:
"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you know it?"
"Does he complain?"
"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits – but I'm afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the game."
In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course, it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a handsome figure before his – accident."
Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked his trade – and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out of the whole business – for me – I couldn't help likin' him; he was so big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I married him for his money – I liked him then, and, besides – well, I thought I was doing the right thing – but now – well, I'm guessing." She ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her there.