_ CHAPTER XXII. THE FINE ARTS
The whole world of Saratoga congratulated Mrs. Dinks upon her beautiful niece, Miss Wayne. Even old Mrs. Dagon said to every body:
"How lovely she is! And to think she comes from Boston! Where did she get her style? Fanny dear, I saw you hugging--I beg your pardon, I mean waltzing with Mr. Dinks."
But when Hope Wayne danced there seemed to be nobody else moving. She filled the hall with grace, and the heart of the spectator with an indefinable longing. She carried strings of bouquets. She made men happy by asking them to hold some of her flowers while she danced; and then, when she returned to take them, the gentlemen were steeped in such a gush of sunny smiling that they stood bowing and grinning--even the wisest--but felt as if the soft gush pushed them back a little; for the beauty which, allured them defended her like a fiery halo.
It was understood that she was engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks, her cousin, who was already, or was to be, very rich. But there was apparently nothing very marked in his devotion.
"It is so much better taste for young people who are engaged not to make love in public," said Mrs. Dinks, as she sat in grand conclave of mammas and elderly ladies, who all understood her to mean her son and niece, and entirely agreed with her.
Meanwhile all the gentlemen who could find one of her moments disengaged were walking, bowling, driving, riding, chatting, sitting, with Miss Wayne. She smiled upon all, and sat apart in her smiling. Some foolish young fellows tried to flirt with her. When they had fully developed their intentions she smiled full in their faces, not insultingly nor familiarly, but with a soft superiority. The foolish young fellows went down to light their cigars and drink their brandy and water, feeling as if their faces had been rubbed upon an iceberg, for not less lofty and pure were their thoughts of her, and not less burning was their sense of her superb scorn.
But Arthur Merlin, the painter, who had come to pass a few days at Saratoga on his way to Lake George, and whose few days had expanded into the few weeks that Miss Wayne had been there--Arthur Merlin, the painter, whose eyes were accustomed not only to look, but to see, observed that Miss Wayne was constantly doing something. It was dance, drive, bowl, ride, walk incessantly. From the earliest hour to the latest she was in the midst of people and excitement. She gave herself scarcely time to sleep.
The painter was introduced to her, and became one of her habitual attendants. Every morning after breakfast Hope Wayne held a kind of court upon the piazza. All the young men surrounded her and worshipped.
Arthur Merlin was intelligent and ingenuous. His imagination gave a kind of airy grace to his conversation and manner. Passionately interested in his art, he deserted its pursuit a little only when the observation of life around him seemed to him a study as interesting. He and Miss Wayne were sometimes alone together; but although she was conscious of a peculiar sympathy with his tastes and character, she avoided him more than any of the other young men. Mrs. Dagon said it was a pity Miss Wayne was so cold and haughty to the poor painter. She thought that people might be taught their places without cruelty.
Arthur Merlin constantly said to himself in a friendly way that if he had been less in love with his art, or had not perceived that Miss Wayne had a continual reserved thought, he might have fallen in love with her. As it was, he liked her so much that he cared for the society of no other lady. He read Byron with her sometimes when they went in little parties to the lake, and somehow he and Hope found themselves alone under the trees in a secluded spot, and the book open in his hand.
He also read to her one day a poem upon a cloud, so beautiful that Hope Wayne's cheek flushed, and she asked, eagerly,
"Whose is that?"
"It is one of Shelley's, a friend of Byron's."
"But how different!"
"Yes, they were different men. Listen to this."
And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.
"How joyous it is!" said Hope; "but I feel the sadness."
"Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems," replied Arthur, looking at her closely.
She colored a little--said that it was warm--and rose to go.
The cold black eyes of Miss Fanny Newt suddenly glittered upon them.
"Will you go home with us, Miss Wayne?"
"Thank you, I am just coming;" and Hope passed into the wood.
When Arthur Merlin was left alone he quietly lighted a cigar, opened his port-folio and spread it before him, then sharpened a pencil and began to sketch. But while he looked at the tree before him, and mechanically transferred it to the paper, he puffed and meditated.
He saw that Hope Wayne was constantly with other people, and yet he felt that she was a woman who would naturally like her own society. He also saw that there was no person then at Saratoga in whom she had such an interest that she would prefer him to her own society.
And yet she was always seeking the distraction of other people.
Puff--puff--puff.
Then there was something that made the society of her own thoughts unpleasant--almost intolerable.
Mr. Arthur Merlin vigorously rubbed out with a piece of stale bread a false line he had drawn.
What is that something--or some-bod-y?
He stopped sketching, and puffed for a long time.
As he returned at sunset Hope Wayne was standing upon the piazza of the hotel.
"Have you been successful?" asked she, dawning upon him.
"You shall judge."
He showed her his sketch of a tree-stump.
"Good; but a little careless," she said.
"Do you draw, Miss Wayne?"
A curious light glimmered across her face, for she remembered where she had last heard those words. She shrank a little, almost imperceptibly, as if her eyes had been suddenly dazzled. Then a little more distantly--not much more, but Arthur had remarked every thing--she said:
"Yes, I draw a little. Good-evening."
"Stop, please, Miss Wayne!" exclaimed Arthur, as he saw that she was going. She turned and smiled--a smile that seemed to him like starlight, it was so clear and cool and dim.
"I have drawn this for you, Miss Wayne."
She bent and took the sketch which he drew from his port-folio.
"It is Manfred in the Coliseum," said he.
She glanced at it; but the smile faded entirely. Arthur stared at her in astonishment as the blood slowly ebbed from her cheeks, then streamed back again. The head of Manfred was the head of Abel Newt. Hope Wayne looked from the sketch to the artist, searching him with her eye to discover if he knew what he was doing. Arthur was sincerely unconscious.
Hope Wayne dropped the paper almost involuntarily. It floated into the road.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Merlin," said she, making a step to recover it.
He was before her, and handed it to her again.
"Thank you," said she, quietly, and went in.
It was still twilight, and Arthur lighted a cigar and sat down to a meditation. The result of it was clear enough.
"That head looks like somebody, and that somebody is Hope Wayne's secret." Puff--puff--puff.
"Where did I get that head?" He could not remember. "Tut!" cried he, suddenly bringing his chair down upon its legs with a force that knocked his cigar out of his mouth, "I copied it from a head which Jim Greenidge has, and which he says was one of his school-fellows."
Meanwhile Hope Wayne had carefully locked the door of her room. Then she hurriedly tore the sketch into the smallest possible pieces, laid them in her hand, opened the window, and whiffed them away into the dark. _