_ CHAPTER LV. ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE
Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition.
"You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and midnight. You see?"
Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes of the spectator.
"Oh yes, I see," said every one of his companions--especially Lawrence Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist. The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous assumptions of the artist. The study for his great picture was simply an unfinished portrait of Hope Wayne.
Aunt Winnifred, who sometimes came into her nephew's studio, saw the study one day, and exclaimed, sorrowfully,
"Oh, Arthur! Arthur!"
The young man, who was busily mixing colors upon his pallet, and humming, as he smoked, "'Tis my delight of a shiny night," turned in dismay, thinking his aunt was suddenly ill.
"My dear aunt!" and he laid down his pallet and ran toward her.
She was sitting in an armchair holding the study. Arthur stopped.
"My dear Arthur, now I understand all."
Arthur Merlin was confused. He, perhaps, suspected that his picture of Diana resembled a certain young lady. But how should Aunt Winnifred know it, who, as he supposed, had never seen her? Besides, he felt it was a disagreeable thing, when he was and had been in love with a young lady for a long time, to have his aunt say that she understood all about it. How could she understand all about it? What right has any body to say that she understands all about it? He asked himself the petulant question because he was very sure that he himself did not by any means understand all about it.
"What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?" demanded Arthur, in a resolute and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was about to hear.
"Yes, yes," continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture--"yes; yes! I see, I see!"
Arthur was quite vexed.
"Now really my dear aunt," said he, remonstratingly, "you must be aware that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You ought to explain what you mean," he added, decidedly.
"Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don't you see?"
Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:
"Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal parables!"
"Infernal parables!" cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.
"Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!"
The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,
"There, Arthur! now that you are reasonable, I'll tell you what I meant."
The artist looked over his shoulder and laughed.
"Go on, dear aunt."
"I understand now why you don't go to our church."
It was a remark so totally unexpected that Arthur stopped short and turned quite round.
"What do you mean, Aunt Winnifred?"
"I mean," said she, holding up the study as if to overwhelm him with resistless proof, "I mean, Arthur--and I could cry as I say it--that you are a Roman Catholic!"
Aunt Winnifred, who was an exemplary member of the Dutch Reformed Church, or, as Arthur gayly called her to her face, a Dutch Deformed Woman, was too simple and sincere in her religious faith to tolerate with equanimity the thought that any one of the name of Merlin should be domiciled in the House of Sin, as she poetically described the Church of Rome.
"Arthur! Arthur! and your father a clergyman. It's too dreadful!"
And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.
But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation of her assertion. Arthur was amused and perplexed.
"My dear aunt, what has put such a droll idea into your head?"
"Because--because," said Aunt Winnifred, sobbing and wiping her eyes, "because this picture, which you keep locked up so carefully, is a picture of the Holy Virgin. Oh dear! just to think of it!"
There was a fresh burst of feeling from the honest and affectionate woman, who felt that to be a Roman Catholic was to be visibly sealed and stamped for eternal woe. But there was an answering burst of laughter from Arthur, who staggered to a sofa, and lay upon his back shouting until the tears also rolled from his eyes.
His aunt stopped, appalled, and made up her mind that he was not only a Catholic but a madman. Then, as Arthur grew more composed, he and his aunt looked at each other for some moments in silence.
"Aunt, you are right. It is the Holy Virgin!"
"Oh! Arthur," she groaned.
"It is my Madonna!"
"Poor boy!" sighed she.
"It is the face I worship."
"Arthur! Arthur!" and his aunt despairingly patted her knees slowly with her hands.
"But her name is not Mary."
Aunt Winnifred looked surprised.
"Her name is Diana."
"Diana?" echoed his aunt, as if she were losing her mind. "Oh! I beg your pardon. Then it's only a portrait after all? Yes, yes. Diana who?"
Arthur Merlin curled one foot under him as he sat, and, lighting a fresh cigar, told Aunt Winnifred the lovely legend of Latmos--talking of Diana and Endymion, and thinking of Hope Wayne and Arthur Merlin.
Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience. Her nephew was eloquent. Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man. During the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in reverie--perhaps tracing the analogy. When he ended there was a moment's silence. Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said:
"Well?"
"Well," said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern portraits.
"Is that the whole?"
"That is the whole."
"Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?"
Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.
"Marry him! Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred. She was a goddess. Goddesses don't marry."
Aunt Winnifred did not answer. Her eyes softened like eyes that see days and things far away--like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that, under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess. _