_ CHAPTER XXXI. AT DELMONICO'S
Lawrence Newt had watched with the warmest sympathy the rapid development of the friendship between Amy Waring and Hope Wayne. He aided it in every way. He called in the assistance of Arthur Merlin, who was in some doubt whether his devotion to his art would allow him to desert it for a moment. But as the doubt only lasted while Lawrence Newt was unfolding a plan he had of reading books aloud with the ladies--and--in fact, a great many other praiseworthy plans which all implied a constant meeting with Miss Waring and Miss Wayne, Mr. Merlin did not delay his co-operation in all Mr. Newt's efforts.
And so they met at Amy Waring's house very often and pretended to read, and really did read, several books together aloud. Ostensibly poetry was pursued at the meetings of what Lawrence Newt called the Round Table.
"Why not? We have our King Arthur, and our Merlin the Enchanter," he said.
"A speech from Mr. Merlin," cried Amy, gayly, while Hope looked up from her work with encouraging, queenly eyes. Arthur looked at them eagerly.
"Oh, Diana! Diana!" he thought, but did not say. That was the only speech he made, and nobody heard it.
The meetings of the Round Table were devoted to poetry, but of a very practical kind. It was pure romance, but without any thing technically romantic. Mrs. Waring often sat with the little party, and, as she worked, talked with Lawrence Newt of earlier days--"days when you were not born, dears," she said, cheerfully, as if to appropriate Mr. Newt. And whenever she made this kind of allusion Amy's work became very intricate indeed, demanding her closest attention. But Hope Wayne, remembering her first evening in his society, raised her eyes again with curiosity, and as she did so Lawrence smiled kindly and gravely, and his eyes hung upon hers as if he saw again what he had thought never to see; while Hope resolved that she would ask him under what circumstances he had known Pinewood. But the opportunity had not yet arrived. She did not wish to ask before the others. There are some secrets that we involuntarily respect, while we only know that they are secrets.
The more Arthur Merlin saw of Hope Wayne the more delighted he was to think how impossible it was for him, in view of his profound devotion to his art, to think of beautiful women in any other light than that of picturesque subjects.
"Really, Mr. Newt," Arthur said to him one evening as they were dining together at Delmonico's--which was then in William Street--"if I were to paint a picture of Diana when she loved Endymion--a picture, by-the-by, which I intend to paint--I should want to ask Miss Wayne to sit to me for the principal figure. It is really remarkable what a subdued splendor there is about her--Diana blushing, you know, as it were--the moon delicately veiled in cloud. It would be superb, I assure you."
Lawrence Newt smiled--he often smiled--as he wiped his mouth, and asked,
"Who would you ask to sit for Endymion?"
"Well, let me see," replied Arthur, cheerfully, and pondering as if to determine who was exactly the man. It was really beautiful to see his exclusive enthusiasm for his art. "Let me see. How would it do to paint an ideal figure for Endymion?"
"No, no," said Lawrence Newt, laughing; "art must get its ideal out of the real. I demand a good, solid, flesh-and-blood Endymion."
"I can't just think of any body," replied Arthur Merlin, musingly, looking upon the floor, and thinking so intently of Hope, in order to image to himself a proper Endymion, that he quite forgot to think of the candidates for that figure.
"How would my young friend Hal Battlebury answer?" asked Lawrence Newt.
"Oh, not at all," replied Arthur, promptly; "he's too light, you know."
"Well, let me see," continued the other, "what do you think of that young Southerner, Sligo Moultrie, who was at Saratoga? I used to think he had some of the feeling for Hope Wayne that Diana wanted in Endymion, and he has the face for a picture."
"Oh, he's not at all the person. He's much too dark, you see," answered Arthur, at once, with remarkable readiness.
"There's Alfred Dinks," said Lawrence Newt, smiling.
"Pish!" said Arthur, conclusively.
"Really, I can not think of any body," returned his companion, with a mock gravity that Arthur probably did not perceive. The young artist was evidently very closely occupied with the composition of his picture. He half-closed his eyes, as if he saw the canvas distinctly, and said,
"I should represent her just lighting upon the hill, you see, with a rich, moist flush upon her face, a cold splendor just melting into passion, half floating, as she comes, so softly superior, so queenly scornful of all the world but him. Jove! it would make a splendid picture!"
Lawrence Newt looked at his friend as he imagined the condescending Diana. The artist's face was a little raised as he spoke, as if he saw a stately vision. It was rapt in the intensity of fancy, and Lawrence knew perfectly well that he saw Hope Wayne's Endymion before him. But at the same moment his eye fell upon his nephew Abel sitting with a choice company of gay youths at another table. There was instantly a mischievous twinkle in Lawrence Newt's eye.
"Eureka! I have Endymion."
Arthur started and felt a half pang, as if Lawrence Newt had suddenly told him of Miss Wayne's engagement. He came instantly out of the clouds on Latinos, where he was dreaming.
"What did you say?" asked he.
"Why, of course, how dull I am! Abel will be your Endymion, if you can get him."
"Who is Abel?" inquired Arthur.
"Why, my nephew, Abel Don Juan Pelham Newt, of Grand Street, and Boniface Newt, Son, & Company, Dry Goods on Commission, Esquire," replied Lawrence Newt, with perfect gravity.
Arthur looked at him bewildered.
"Don't you know my nephew, Abel Newt?"
"No, not personally. I've heard of him, of course."
"Well, he's a very handsome young man; and though he be dark, he may also be Endymion. Why not? Look at him; there he sits. 'Tis the one just raising the glass to his lips."
Lawrence Newt bent his head as he spoke toward the gay revelers, who sat, half a dozen in number, and the oldest not more than twenty-five, all dandies, all men of pleasure, at a neighboring table spread with a profuse and costly feast. Abel was the leader, and at the moment Arthur Merlin and Lawrence Newt turned to look he was telling some anecdote to which they all listened eagerly, while they sipped the red wine of France, poured carefully from a bottle reclining in a basket, and delicately coated with dust. Abel, with his glass in his hand and the glittering smile in his eye, told the story with careless grace, as if he were more amused with the listeners' eagerness than with the anecdote itself. The extreme gayety of his life was already rubbing the boyish bloom from his face, but it developed his peculiar beauty more strikingly by removing that incongruous innocence which belongs to every boyish countenance.
As he looked at him, Arthur Merlin was exceedingly impressed by the air of reckless grace in his whole appearance, which harmonized so entirely with his face. Lawrence Newt watched his friend as the latter gazed at Abel. Lawrence always saw a great deal whenever he looked any where. Perhaps he perceived the secret dissatisfaction and feeling of sudden alarm which, without any apparent reason, Arthur felt as he looked at Abel.
But the longer Arthur Merlin looked at Abel the more curiously perplexed he was. The feeling which, if he had not been a painter so utterly devoted to his profession that all distractions were impossible, might have been called a nascent jealousy, was gradually merged in a half-consciousness that he had somewhere seen Abel Newt before, but where, and under what circumstances, he could not possibly remember. He watched him steadily, puzzling himself to recall that face.
Suddenly he clapped his hand upon the table. Lawrence Newt, who was looking at him, saw the perplexity of his expression smooth itself away; while Arthur Merlin, with an "oh!" of surprise, satisfaction, and alarm, exclaimed--and his color changed--
"Why, it's Manfred in the Coliseum!"
Lawrence Newt was confounded. Was Arthur, then, not deceiving himself, after all? Did he really take an interest in all these people only as a painter, and think of them merely as subjects for pictures?
Lawrence Newt was troubled. He had seen in Arthur with delight what he supposed the unconscious beginnings of affection for Hope Wayne. He had pleased himself in bringing them together--of course Amy Waring must be present too when he himself was, that any
tete-a-tete which arose might not be interrupted--and he had dreamed the most agreeable dreams. He knew Hope--he knew Arthur--it was evidently the hand of Heaven. He had even mentioned it confidentially to Amy Waring, who was profoundly interested, and who charitably did the same offices for Arthur with Hope Wayne that Lawrence Newt did for the young candidates with her. The conversation about the picture of Diana had only confirmed Lawrence Newt in his conviction that Arthur Merlin really loved Hope Wayne, whether he himself knew it or not.
And now was he all wrong, after all? Ridiculous! How could he be?
He tried to persuade himself that he was not. But he could not forget how persistently Arthur had spoken of Hope only as a fine Diana; and how, after evidently being struck with Abel Newt, he had merely exclaimed, with a kind of suppressed excitement, as if he saw what a striking picture he would make, "Manfred in the Coliseum!"
Lawrence Newt drank a glass of wine, thoughtfully. Then he smiled inwardly.
"It is not the first time I have been mistaken," thought he. "I shall have to take Amy Waring's advice about it."
As he and his friend passed the other table, on their way out, Abel nodded to his uncle; and as Arthur Merlin looked at him carefully, he was very sure that he saw the person whose face so singularly resembled that of Manfred's in the picture he had given Hope Wayne.
"I am all wrong," thought Lawrence Newt, ruefully, as they passed out into the street.
"Abel Newt, then, is Hope Wayne's somebody," thought Arthur Merlin, as he took his friend's arm. _