The Smart Set/Volume 1/Issue 2/One of Cattermole's Experiments

by Julian Hawthorne

 

ONE OF CATTERMOLE'S EXPERIMENTS

 

By Julian Hawthorne

 

AFTER middle life one can usually assign people one meets to their typical pigeon-holes; but I cannot classify Cattermole. I am human, and he is phantasmal.

In the twenty years since we used to be together he has changed. So do we all, of course, between thirty and fifty; we grow older, get lines on the face, gray in the hair, a stoop in the shoulders, or a paunch, or a drag in the step. But Cattermole, from a lithe, quick, graceful, handsome youth, has become ghastly and phantasmal—I recur to that adjective.

His hair falls, as thick and straight as ever, on either side his long face, and is cut short off at the level of the lobes of his ears; but from jet black it has become perfectly white. Singularly white, too, is his complexion; it seems luminous or phosphorescent almost, like punk wood in the dark; some disease, perhaps, has taken the red from his blood. Amidst this spectral colorlessness his eyes, seemingly twice as big and black as before, glow forth; they no longer sparkle, but glow, as if a deep fire burned within them.

There is no lessening of his intellectual power; on the contrary, he has a look of preternatural intelligence, saved from being embarrassing or disagreeable only by his exceeding courteousness. Perfect manners, indeed, he always had, subtle, refined; a soothing, fascinating, winning style of accost; but now they seem uncanny—this tact, polish, suavity, accuracy of touch and softness. They are irresistible while you are in his presence, perhaps because you feel obscurely flattered and allured by intercourse with that great brain lurking behind these outward manifestations. How skilfully and enchantingly it handles you! Nevertheless, when you are apart from his spell you feel uneasy.

I must confess, though, that nothing could be, apparently, more easy, simple and frank than Cattermole's communion with me during the twenty-four hours that I have been his guest. Is it only a fancy of mine—this perception of a gulf between us, impassable and unspeakable? I am human and he seems phantasmal. I can get no nearer to it, at present, than that; and I don't quite comprehend what I mean.

Of his history since University days I know the outline only. It was then a foregone conclusion that he could make himself what he pleased, and we assumed that he was to be a statesman; not the President—that did not seem great enough—but one of the superb Warwicks of history—the king makers and unmakers. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar; later, sat a term or two in Congress. At this time he was poor. Then came the great event. Jim Mahone, the wild Irishman, whom he had saved from the scaffold by his famous address to the jury in the Pawling murder case, died in Colorado, where he had become a lucky miner, bequeathing Cattermole twelve million dollars.

Most millionaires become public characters at once, but Cattermole disappeared; he used the resources of his wealth to conceal himself. No political assessor could find him, no tax gatherer locate his estates, no charities monger run him down; his millions could be traced in no investment; no broker represented him on 'Change. He relinquished (if he ever had it) his ambition for State affairs; he ignored society, and left the world with its mouth open. Nobody could account for it.

Physically, of course, he still existed; glimpses were occasionally caught of him on Fifth avenue, Piccadilly, at Paris, Cairo, Simla, Rome, Yokohama, San Francisco, Valparaiso; he was said to have a suite of rooms at a hotel here, bachelor apartments there, a villa somewhere else; in short, though he was no longer in the world, he was on the earth. But you never saw mention of his name in the newspapers; he was guest at no public banquet or other social function; he never raced horses or joined the yacht club. With the enormous leverage of that fortune in his hand he vanished, and his place knew him no more.

Naturally, he was forgotten before long. It was surmised that the amount of his fortune had been exaggerated; that he was victim to consumption, cancer, hypochondria, leprosy, insanity; again, it was asserted that he was secretly the most accomplished sybarite living. But at length he ceased to be mentioned at all; and for my own part, though I used to be as near him as anyone, if I have bestowed a thought on him these ten years past it was as upon a dead man. Yet here I am at his country place up the Hudson in the lap of luxury. Cattermole has offered no explanation of his long self-exile, but resumes our intercourse as if it had never been interrupted. Possibly, like fabulous sea monsters, after showing above the surface for a few weeks or months, he will sink again to the depths for another generation. But he excites my curiosity, and I hope to find him out. What game is afoot, I wonder?

II

A marvellous man, Cattermole; not easily understood, easily misjudged. That mighty brain is fed by as mighty a heart; but he is shy and secret as a girl.

One might call him a modern Haroun Al Raschid, traveling in disguise, studying man not in cold curiosity, but to do him good. He is a mortal providence or almoner of God, endowed with wisdom, goodness and power; a man who has put aside a career that would have made him immortal in men's mouths, for the sake of blessing humble lives which could not proclaim because they knew not their benefactor. Did ever wealth find such a steward?

Cattermole is incapable of blowing his own trumpet, but from our long talk yesterday I divine much. He is, after all, as transparent as he is deep; and perhaps a sympathetic vein in me helps him disclose himself so naively. In our youth, I remember, I was his confidant. Twenty years' silent devotion to poor people—what a record! He does not suspect how much I have gathered from his unguarded talk—his prattle, I might call it. If he distrusted me, he would shield himself with adamant; the mystery with which he has clothed himself all these years proves that. But our former friendship—I had forgotten how close it was—disarmed him, and he spoke without disguise. I did not show him how I was affected, lest he should be stricken silent. In fact, I don't know why I was affected so much; I am not sentimental, as a rule. Perhaps his voice and eyes had something to do with it.

In spite of his long separation from the persons and things of his former life, he remembers them. He mentioned Mabel Lyell, for instance. She jilted him a month before he got Jim Mahone's legacy. Tom Chantrey seemed a great catch in comparison with the poor young lawyer; but I fancy the event that happened four weeks after she and Chantrey were married must have cast a cloud over their honeymoon; for Mabel, even at that early period, cared more for the world than for romance. And what a figure she would have made with Cattermole's millions! I recall that Cattermole never said a word against her at the time, and yet her conduct must have hit him hard. At all events, he is still a bachelor. He spoke of her to-day with a sort of musing tenderness, as if he were looking at a photograph of a dead friend. 1 gave him what news I had of her. Chantrey died a year or two ago, leaving no money, to speak of; but their daughter, Marion, is gifted with beauty and a voice, both carefully trained, and she made a good début in Opera last season, and will sing here next winter.

Cattermole listened to me, sitting sidewise in his low-backed chair, one long leg thrown across the other, hands folded on his knee, and that remarkable head bent forward.

“So you've heard her sing? What is her voice?”

“Pure soprano; a wonderful voice, but cold,” said I. “It's like diamond-clear water flowing over ice, if you want a simile.”

He meditated a while, ploughing his slender fingers through his long hair.

“Such a voice,” he finally said, “can win admiration, but not enthusiasm, devotion, furor. It won't bring nations to her feet. I would like her to be the greatest singer in the world!”

“She is what she is; she can't be changed now.”

“Great music is, in the first place, warmth, color and emotion,” said he; “in the second place, it's light, form and intellect. In other words, music—singing is love audibly expressed by art. Until love has awakened the soul it cannot reach the highest point of art.”

“Then Marion won't reach it. She is said to have already declined several good offers on the ground that she's married to her art.”

“That is a shallow theory,” he replied. “Love does not exclude art; it is the life of art, and most of all, of music. What she needs is love—a great passion.”

“Perhaps; but, without being an avowed man-hater, the girl seems to care nothing for men. There's such a thing as heredity, you know,” I ventured to add.

“She is but a girl of twenty,” he said; and then, suddenly rising to his feet, appealed to me with great force: “Why don't you influence her?”

It surprised me. “Why don't you influence her yourself?” I returned. “Have her and her mother up here; they're in town.”

He gazed abstractedly for a few moments, pressing his lips against each other, and at last exclaimed, “So I will!”

III

Marion and her mother arrived yesterday. So, also, did a young fellow named Morton Travers. He is a Harvard graduate, with more physique than brains, I judge; distinguished himself in some international university boat race a year or two ago, I believe. I presume Cattermole must have met him in London. Outside of his muscles, however, there is a certain power about the youth, a vigor of temperament, a massive self-poise, a steady, black-browed intensity in his gaze. He is polite and shows good form, but I don't take to him particularly. What he is here for I know not.

Mrs. Chantrey never looked better, or seemed more disposed to be agreeable. I don't approve of this lady, but that does not prevent me from greatly enjoying her society. She is much more charming than a sincere or conscientious person could be, and she is full of really interesting conversation. She meets your eye with a congenial, understanding, inviting look, as much as to say, “You're delightful, you're clever, you know what's what—and there's a pair of us!”—which is engagingly flattering. Her life has been a fight from the start, and not a successful one; she has had disappointments, provocations, insults, poverty, everything that could exasperate and humiliate an ambitious, clever woman; but the only visible effect has been to make her better company. She is perfect in every social accomplishment, so artificial as to seem natural. Interiorly, she may be black as tophet, hating the human race and craving its destruction; but what have we to do with that? In this world, angels would be impossible people in society; while a devil arrayed as an angel is just the thing.

But I am not justified in taking this tone about the poor lady. In all her much tried and tempted career she has never been known to make a false step. What patience, temper and purpose is indicated by that! What courage, too, never to have admitted defeat, but to be still, as the pugilists say, in the ring! And now, at full fifty years of age, she hopes to win out with her daughter. The girl is certainly a beauty, and has a voice with money in it; and there is no reason why she should not capture some Russian prince with infinite riches, and then the much-enduring, deeply planning Mabel Lyell would have her reward.

Marion has auburn hair and dark brown eyes. She is reserved, and seems satisfied with herself, for which one can't blame her; but she certainly has a temperament, and this coldness might turn out to be a mere manner of self-defense. She sang for us yesterday forenoon, touching the piano very lightly with her fingertips; and I, listening to her with Cattermole's remarks in my mind, realized for the first time that that diamond chill in her voice may be only the virgin shield which she instinctively interposes between the world and the depths within her. I can imagine, too, that were that defense once broken down, a force of passion would be born from her that would entirely transform her if it found a worthy object, and would make that voice of hers all that Cattermole wished it to be. She is quite different from her mother; there is not the least intellectual nor moral sympathy between them, but only, on Marion's part, the natural, unconsidered affection of daughter for mother. The latter, on the other hand, would sacrifice the girl's soul without a qualm to a “good match”—the kind she herself did not make with Chantrey. That kind of good is the only kind in which she is capable of really believing. If Marion suspects this, no doubt it would freeze her up more than ever. But I don't think she has turned her mind in that direction.

She is independent, severe, dwelling in her own thoughts, with a sort of maiden fierceness in her which sometimes hardly clothes itself in the forms of courtesy. There is a fine, strong brain packed beneath that broad, low forehead. She is taciturn and serious, saying little and smiling less. But the smile is beautiful when it comes; and what she says is never idle and foolish. I wonder if her mother will be able to spoil her!

Since her mother is not a woman to do anything without an object, I also wonder what she is here for; and it has occurred to me that possibly she may contemplate the desperate enterprise of capturing Cattermole! She is a handsome widow, looking much less than her age, and skilful in every feminine resource; no fool, either, and perhaps believing that his previous sentiment for her may be revived. Cattermole, with his apostolic simplicity, and the essential youthfulness which his selfless life has kept alive in him, full of forgiveness, too, for all human frailties, might conceivably fall into the snare. We are more apt to love those we have truly forgiven than those who forgive us. He talks with her a good deal. What a triumph for her if she succeeds! At present, and for some years past, she has, of course, been dependent, in a way, on Marion, and her manner toward her has, in consequence, been almost deferential. But if she carries off the millionaire Marion would be dethroned at once. However, the girl can take care of herself, and would be all the better for being relieved of the maternal incubus.

IV

We walked to Bowlder Point this afternoon to see the sunset. There were four of us—Cattermole with Mrs. Chantrey, and Marion and I. Morton Travers had ridden to the neighboring town on his bicycle. “For my part,” remarked I to my companion, as we scrambled up the rocky path of the shaded glen, with the brook murmuring below, “I am old-fashioned enough to prefer walking to wheeling.” As she made no rejoinder, I added: “If I could ride as well as Travers I might think differently. He is a fine fellow.”

“I am glad he prefers wheeling,” said she; and when I asked her why, she answered, “because I wouldn't like him beside me when I am looking at a beautiful view.”

“He would distract your attention from it?” I suggested.

She did not at first reply; but presently said, curtly, “That was not what I meant.”

This left me to infer that she did not like the young man, and it pleased me; for I was of the same mind about him, and I thought I had noticed that he was disposed to make advances to her. Cattermole, it is true, seemed to favor him; but I doubted whether Cattermole was a good judge of human nature; he lent to everyone from his own capital of goodness. I trusted much more in Marion's intuitions—especially as they confirmed my own.

We soon emerged on the Bowlder, the view from which was a noble one. The calm, winding river gleamed amid its dark hills, and the sun gathered gorgeous colors in the west. There was a rustic bench, on which the two women and I sat down; but Cattermole seated himself on a rock at the verge of the cliff and, taking off his hat, inhaled the cool air deeply.

“Such a scene as that teaches me that there is more good than evil in the world,” said he.

“Didn't somebody say that 'Every prospect pleases, but only man is vile'?” asked Mrs. Chantrey, in her sprightly way.

“I once knew a man,” said Cattermole, after a pause, “who displayed so many fine qualities that I grew very fond of him, and trusted him completely. He was about my age, and showed deep interest in the manner I was attempting to help some unfortunate persons abroad. His practical and administrative abilities led me to place in his hands a great deal of the work of distribution. After some months I accidentally discovered that there was a serious leakage somewhere, which my investigations unexpectedly brought home to my friend. Among other things there was a forgery of my name for several thousand pounds, which could have been done by no other than by him. I confronted him with the evidence, and he could make no effective defense. I would have given a hundred times the money to have proved him innocent. But a criminal of this kind is dangerous to society, and it seemed my duty to prosecute him. He had a son, a fine young fellow with the world before him; how could I endure to blight that young career? I passed a day and a night of very severe anxiety. What would you have done, Miss Marion?” he asked, suddenly turning to her.

“I cannot answer such a question; but I am sure you forgave him,” said she.

I liked that reply. If women did not prefer love to justice, what would become of us? And what Marion ascribed to Cattermole she would have done herself, in spite of her disclaimer.

“The next morning,” he went on, “the man's son himself came to me. What he said amounted to this: He had been in his father's confidence; it was possible that he had committed the forgery without his father's knowledge. 'And if you bring him to trial,' he added, 'I will go on the stand and swear that I am the guilty one. Even if the jury does not convict me, it must at least give my father the benefit of the doubt.'”

Marion's eyes grew tender, and she smiled.

“I wish I knew that son,” said she.

“You have your wish; he is Morton Travers,” returned Cattermole.

The surprise was complete to all of us. Marion's cheeks flushed, slowly and deeply. Was she pleased or not? It is a curious question.

“But what did you do?” asked Mrs. Chantrey.

Cattermole laughed amusedly.

“Oh, I got out of it the best way I could. There was a sheep ranch of mine in New Zealand which I placed at the father's disposal; and I don't think he can do any harm there. Morton I took with me. He is an architect by profession, and I am planning with him to build a couple of blocks of good clean houses for poor people in the centre of the New York slums; the rent will be nominal, the sanitation perfect, and medical care free. But Morton could make a name and fortune for himself without aid from me. I owe him a great deal; among other things, the right to say, as I did just now, that there is more good than evil in the world!”

“Well, I'm ashamed of my quotation,” remarked Mrs. Chantrey, with a sigh. “I am so glad, too—I always liked Mr. Travers immensely.”

Marion rose—with some impatience, I thought—and walked over to the rock on which Cattermole was sitting. She said nothing to him, and appeared absorbed in the splendors of the setting sun; but presently I saw her put out her hand and take his in it for a moment, to his evident surprise.

On the walk home we changed partners, Mrs. Chantrey falling to me.

“What a man he is!” she exclaimed, in confidential enthusiasm, referring to our host. “And, whatever that young man's abilities may be, Mr. Cattermole evidently means to make his fortune for him. Don't you think so?”

To this I thought fit to reply: “If I were a marriageable girl, I should think Mr. Travers worth cultivating!”

V

Something strange is going on here. At present I confess myself puzzled.

During the three or four days since our walk to Bowlder Point it has been my amiable function to act as the respectful observer of what I assumed to be a twofold love-making: Cattermole and Mrs. Chantrey on one hand, and Marion and Morton Travers on the other. But to-night I am like one wading in deep water and feeling mysterious and unpleasant things under his feet. What they are, I don't know, for the water is muddy.

I have fallen into the habit of getting up before breakfast and taking a walk of half a mile through the woods to a delightful little cataract which the brook makes by tumbling down a rocky declivity some thirty feet in height. I had not supposed that anyone knew of this practice of mine; but this morning, on arriving at the place, I was suddenly aware of the presence of Marion.

“Good morning, Naiad!” exclaimed I, cheerfully. “Have you come to surprise secrets from the music of my waterfall?”

But Marion was very grave. “I want to speak to you privately,” she said. “I cannot speak to my mother or to Mr. Cattermole, and I am in trouble.”

“And am I to understand that you prefer me as a confidant to Mr. Travers also?” I asked, still smiling.

“It is about him I wish to speak. What is your opinion of him?”

“Since Cattermole's story I have had no choice but to think him a paragon.”

“Yes; how could you help it—or I!” She sat down as she spoke, and I now perceived that she was in a tremor; she was deeply agitated about something. “Mr. Cattermole is the noblest of men,” she went on after a moment. “But wicked persons may take advantage of the purity and honesty of such men. Perhaps Mr. Travers really committed that crime, and his father was innocent. By pretending to protect his father, he secured himself. His father took the disgrace and went into exile rather than denounce his son.”

This took away my breath. I stared at my beautiful interlocutor in stupefaction. “My dear girl, what put that into your head?” I said at last.

“Because if the man is wicked now, I believe he was wicked then; and if he acted So nobly then, he would not act like a scoundrel now!”

This was sound logic. But what about the premises? “Has Mr. Travers been doing anything he should not?” I inquired.

She gave me an intent look, full of pain. She made an ineffective effort to speak, caught her breath, and was plainly tempted to cry, but drove the tears back. At last the words came, joltingly and ill-ordered, but their purport was plain enough.

“I had felt a prejudice against him—an instinct—at first. When Mr. Cattermole told us that thing, I was ashamed to have been so unjust. I forced myself to be pleasant to him. Besides, mother said—but that's no matter. And I thought Mr. Cattermole wished—because he and mother had been friends years ago, and he thought so much of Mr. Travers—that we should—” She made a gesture, to which I nodded comprehension. “Well, he has been saying and doing as men do—you must have seen how he has been doing. I could not like him; I tried to, but something in me fought against him in spite of myself. I hated his touch, or to have him near me, though I told myself I must be wrong. In the struggle I think I may sometimes have given him encouragement more than if I had disliked him less; but I had never wished to think of any man in that way. So he kept pushing himself forward; not delicately and reverently, but coarsely, sometimes saying things that I could have struck him for, and trying to take my hand, and even to— Ah!” she made a movement as if shaking a reptile from her.

I was very angry by this time, but I reflected that perhaps her temperamental aversion to the fellow might have led her to put too severe a construction on his manifestations. “He is a young animal, of course,” I said; “but it needn't follow that——”

“Oh, I'm only a girl of twenty,” she interrupted, “but I have been on the stage, and I know how men try to flirt, and how to check them. But this was different. I must try to tell you. Yesterday evening, to escape him, I went out by the north door, and to Bowlder Point alone. But he must have been on the watch, and he followed me.”

Here she stopped. Her fingers were clutched together in her lap, her eyes were bent down, and I saw tears falling from them. I was seriously alarmed.

“Marion, your father could not feel more tenderly to you than I do,” I said. “You need not tell me any more—if there is anything to tell. I shall understand if you are silent.”

“No—no!” she cried, rising to her feet, sweeping the tears from her eyes and fixing them fiercely upon me. “Thank God, there was the precipice!”

The plashing of the waterfall—I shall never forget it!

“And you were forced to threaten that?” I asked, at length. She nodded.

We walked back to the house together slowly, consulting as we went. But the more I think over it, the more incomprehensible does it appear.

That Cattermole desires these two to marry appears certain. He spoke of love as indispensable to Marion's artistic development, and invited Morton here to meet her. He told us that story about the young man in order to incline Marion toward him. Morton's attentions toward her since then must have had Cattermole's approval, or he would have discouraged them.

On the other hand, Morton's future obviously depends on Cattermole's favor. Yet, what could more surely alienate it than his conduct last night? What, then, was his motive? Not the mad desperation of a rejected suitor, for Marion had not rejected him; he had not even offered himself to her. Since his fortune depends upon his winning her for his wife, why should he deliberately and gratuitously damn himself by attempting her ruin? Every crime has a motive, however base the motive may be; but this crime was attempted in the teeth of the most powerful motives that could appeal to such a man—fortune and the possession of a beautiful woman. It is inconceivable, but there it stands.

Morton ought to be shot. But it is for Cattermole to deal with him. Marion would not tell him, from some chivalric feeling of reluctance to expose to him the infamy of his protégé; also, perhaps, lest it interrupt her mother's renewed romance with him. But no hesitation need deter me. Nevertheless; were I to accuse Morton to him on Marion's story alone, the fellow would deny it, and so place Marion in a disagreeable position. I wish I could get independent testimony. Possibly Morton himself may supply it inadvertently. If he finds that nothing is said, he will assume that she was silent, through fear or some other reason, and may plot a new outrage. She has put herself under my protection, and I am answerable for her safety; but something may be gained by watching the situation for a day or two. The affair is so extraordinary that there must be no opening left for making a mistake. Poor Cattermole! How little he suspects the mine beneath his feet!

VI

Morton has not been visible to-day until late in the afternoon, when I saw him and Cattermole walking up and down the broad terrace together. They were too distant for the expression of their faces to be seen, but they appeared to be talking earnestly. My room faces the west; I have been sitting here most of the day, and as the sun declined I closed the shutters, through the slats of which I could see without being seen. On the other side of the corridor are the rooms occupied by Mrs. Chantrey and Marion; Marion had kept to herself since morning, and, though she does not know it, I have been acting as watchdog. But the situation cannot stay much longer as it is; if Morton is not gone of his own accord by to-morrow, I mean to take an aggressive hand in the proceedings.

After a while Morton left Cattermole and came toward the house. He walked slowly, with his eyes on the ground, cutting at the daisies as he came with semicircular sweeps of his cane. He wore his bicycle dress; and certainly he is a fine figure of a man. But as he drew near he raised his face, and I never saw a blacker look than that which it bore. What were he and Cattermole talking about? It could hardly have been about the new hygienic houses in the slums; but it is still less credible that it could have been about Marion. It was the look of a man thwarted and infuriated, and ready to take some desperate resolution. Could he have been quarreling with Cattermole about anything? I suddenly pushed open the shutters and leaned out. He looked swiftly up, but the black expression did not pass from his countenance; rather it grew more set. Whatever evil there may be in this fellow, he does not bear the marks of a hypocrite. He is of the desperado type—the kind that hold up trains and rob banks, in daylight, in the West.

He passed out of sight, and presently Cattermole sauntered across the sward, taking long, meditative steps, with his hands behind him and his wide-brimmed hat on the back of his head, like some old farmer. What a contrast! He saw me from a distance, and saluted me with a playful movement of the hand. His face, as he smiled up at me, had a really seraphic look. I was almost irritated by it, considering how sinister were the conditions surrounding him. I have read somewhere that angels occasionally visit hell; they would be in peril of destruction there were it not for the protection afforded them by their own paradisaical atmosphere, which surrounds them, and which no devil can approach or breathe without suffering torments. In some such angelic way Cattermole seems to move about this earth; but I fear that lovely expression is destined to fade from his countenance before he is many hours older. Angel and devil come to closer grip here than in the world of spirits!

He paused for a moment under my window. “Our singing bird should come out of her cage and give us the music for this lovely accompaniment of earth and sky,” said he. “I fancy,” he added, with a significant smile, “that the ice will be melting when we hear her next!”

This remark was so untimely that I could not restrain a grim laugh. I felt tempted to say something about ice melting under the fires of tophet as well as under the sunshine of heaven, but I kept it back. What could Morton have been telling him?

He stepped under the veranda, where I heard him greeted by the mellifluous voice of Mrs. Chantrey. Once again I was impressed by the queer notion which I experienced the first day I came here, that Cattermole is phantasmal. How is it possible for a human creature to be so unconscious of the intense human passions fighting close around him? It is grotesque—almost monstrous! In some ways his sensibility and spiritual insight appear to be exceptionally keen; yet here he is insensible! A dog perceives changes of mood in those he loves; but Cattermole, almost as superior to the common man as the latter to a dog, perceives nothing! Surely his heart should warn him. Has he, after all, no heart?

The heart is the only talisman. Did it die out of him the day Mabel Lyell broke her troth, leaving him with only an exquisite æsthetic endowment? Such a man would lack human footing in the world. As the sun falls as willingly on dunghills as on roses, so he might commit or connive at crime, because it seemed to him as alluring as virtue. The brain, untutored by the heart, has led many able souls down instead of up; hell is as full of brains as heaven. Now, whether a heartless æsthetic monstrosity of this kind did good or evil in the world would depend on circumstances—on sheer accident!

Cattermole, for example, gains unlimited fortune at the moment his affections are outraged. His refined and civilized intelligence casts about for relief from the preoccupation of pain, and happens to picture to itself the charms of altruism. He can feed the starving, clothe the naked and play the part of Providence. Native originality leads him to eschew the beaten paths of charity; he strikes out a new path. He finds himself agreeably distracted; he is pleased and flattered. But all the while he remains blind to the moral quality of his acts; he regards them as an egregious work of art, affording him the same personal gratification as if he were to paint a picture or carve a statue. He does the outward works of neighborly love, but his inner motive is love of self.

Acts are judged by the motive the actor had in view. Suppose, instead of happening upon philanthropy, he had found it pleasant to devote fortune and faculties to the torture and destruction of his fellow-creatures. Self-indulgence would have been the motive equally in both cases, and, theoretically at least, he would be as much a devil in the one as in the other.

Practically, there might be a difference; good deeds may reflect some benefit on the doer, even though he does them mechanically. But the point is that, being guided by no true religious principle, he may at any moment exchange benevolence for crime, without being himself conscious of the change. All he seeks being gratification, why should he avoid one means of attaining it more than another? In fact, how do I know that he has not, during these twenty years of invisibility, done as much mischief as good? I have taken him at his own valuation, or, more truly, at the valuation which my imagination placed upon his ambiguous confidences. I mistrusted him at first; afterward, I yielded to a fascination, mingled with memories of our youthful intimacies. But I know nothing about him, except that, in this crisis, he has failed to show a human comprehension of the situation.

But, pshaw! These speculations are fantastic: I am allowing my fad of psychological analysis to lead me into treason to friendship. Cattermole simply does not understand the wickedness of the world; his thoughts are set on a love match for Marion and Morton and on his sanitary dwellings in the slums, and he has eyes for naught else. The revelation will shock him; but he is not to blame. The question is, what will he do?

VII

Mrs. Chantrey made the usual feminine apologies for Marion's absence from dinner, and covered the defection by giving us an entertaining account of the girl's first appearance on the stage, the events and intrigues leading up thereto, and the final triumph. She made it appear—which is, doubtless, true—that the appearance might never have come off but for her own tact and savoir faire; but forestalled criticism by the concluding remark: “After all, what would anything else have amounted to but for the dear child's own marvelous gift?”

Cattermole listened with a dreamy smile. Then he pushed his long hair from his forehead and leaned back in his chair, letting his strangely glowing eyes rest upon Morton, opposite, upon whose brows the shadow of the afternoon was still dark.

“And yet she is but on the threshold,” said he. “Art is the manifestation of a divine life in us; but the human instrument must be fully developed before the divine energy can adequately possess and use it. Art is born of a connubial intercourse between the spiritual mind and its material environment—the joys, sorrows, hopes and fears, passions and regrets, arising from association with our fellows. The artist must never submit his free limbs to the shackles of orthodoxy in life and morals. He must admit to his soul the broadest experiences of the race. To him, poison is nourishment as well as bread, sin and pain as well as goodness and pleasure, because he does not recognize the conventional verdict upon these elements of experience, but perceives all of them alike to be necessary ingredients in the grand diapason of mortal existence. The conventional moralist is a creature of fears and servilities. Dreading lest the wrath of an imagined tyrant of heaven shut him out from the rewards of a cringing virtue, he brazenly denies the instincts of that nature which the infinite love of his Creator freely bestowed upon him. He lets I dare not wait upon I would; he wraps in a dastardly napkin the talent which was entrusted to him to open an unrestricted intercourse with the world. The artist is infinitely above so groveling a view of his obligations. He is something more than a flat surface and a hackneyed outline; in him are depths, heights, shadows as well as lights, ever varying contours, shifting hues, soul and substance. He absorbs his surroundings, interprets and organizes them, and vindicates their divine source by reproducing them in forms of immortal beauty. The artist is man as God meant all men to be; but no moralist can be an artist, or ever could produce a work of art.”

At this point my native amiability gave way.

“Upon my word, Cattermole,” I exclaimed, “I'm glad Marion is beyond earshot of your eloquence. What you say means that license is man's duty and path to heaven. Our highest faculties are to be developed by indulging our basest propensities. The debauché and the criminal are God's only perfect work, and works of art can be created only by moral degenerates. Well, all the works of art I've seen bore internal evidence of victory over every self-seeking and unneighborly instinct of our nature. They were pure as water lilies, and their message, whether given through the medium of picture, statue, temple, poem or symphony, was that good and truth are supreme. What other basis can beauty have?”

My emphasis would, perhaps, have been less had not my emotions been of late so tried. Cattermole did not seem disturbed, but Mrs. Chantrey, who, to do her justice, did not, I think, comprehend or care for the merits of the discussion, gathered from my stridency.that harmony was lacking somewhere, and sought to restore it by saying, tranquilly:

“Most artists I've known in society were delightful people. In society, of course, all one asks is outward conformity; if the artistic temperament, under the rose, takes an occasional airing beyond the bounds of strict propriety, we forgive it in gratitude for their art.”

It was on the tip of my angry tongue to ask her whether she included her own daughter under this tolerant judgment; but what is the use of arguing with society people?

“Whatever specific acts the artist may happen to commit,” remarked the unruffled Cattermole, “he can never be charged with crime, baseness or selfishness, because his motive is always culture, which aims to create the immortal good and fair. Motive always qualifies acts; they have no intrinsic quality. Technical crimes and vices cease to be such when they have in view the deepening or elevation of the artistic faculty. Therefore, moral opprobrium can never attach to the artist; the law of his being is not license, nor is it duty; it is spontaneity. As for your water lily, is not its purity born of the black mud of the river bottom? But all I'm driving at is, that Marion will be a greater singer—the greatest of singers, I believe—when her nature has been mellowed and enriched by experience—meaning by that word a somewhat broader and less restrained intercourse with the human side of life than is commonly deemed prudent for young unmarried women.”

This astounded me; it suggested possibilities that I could not trust myself to think of. “To assert that an artist, or anybody else, may commit sin without being a sinner is, to my mind, to talk something much worse than rubbish,” I said, between my teeth. “I'm sorry to be so explicit, Cattermole; but perhaps you don't know my provocation. Come, Mr. Travers,” I continued, turning upon him with a murderous smile, “why are you silent this evening? I'm sure you agree with your patron; hadn't you better say so?”

He met my challenging gaze with a look of sullen reserve. “I'm not an expert in transcendental discussions,” he said, in his sharp, crisply enunciated tones. “I have heard that artists were born, not made; but if Mr. Cattermole thinks that they ought to be made as well, I dare say he's right.”

What might have been said or done next I don't know, but at this juncture we were interrupted by the sound of music from the drawing-room; and after a moment's pause we rose by a common impulse and went in there.

VIII

The piano stood at the end of the room, in a deep and wide embrasure banked up with flowers. Marion, seated at it, had her back toward us. She was dressed in black, and out of the soft ruching her smooth white neck rose erect and pure, with the mass of her auburn hair above it. She did not turn at our entrance, but continued to play an irregular movement, with risings and subsidences like the complainings of the wind before a storm. There was something ominous in the sound, with interwoven moanings of passion and pain. Morton Travers took a seat by himself on the right; I sat near Mrs. Chantrey on the left, and Cattermole stalked up to the arch of the embrasure, against the side of which he leaned, with arms folded and head bent, a striking figure.

The music was evidently impromptu; but Marion perfectly commanded the instrument, and was able to give immediate expression to the emotions that were struggling in her soul. I now felt, as I never before had in her case, the power of the highest musical art, and realized how it may lift the performer out of and above herself and, by exalting individual feelings to universal proportions, interpret and ennoble it. Fortunately for Marion, in this crisis, she was able to avail herself of the consolation that the divine wisdom of music alone can afford. For great music is divine wisdom—the divine wisdom of divine love, through which we may perceive the atonement of creature with Creator. It is a language too charged with meaning and too catholic to be articulate; the hearts of myriads may find expression in it, each different from the rest. The source of man's evil and suffering is his finiteness; but man has also his infinite side; his life is wrought out of the conflict between the two; music avouches the harmony in which the discords are lost and blended, which survives and reigns over them. Every true musical composition—nay, every work of genuine art of whatever kind—unveils to man the glorious vision of his own immortality, in the sweep of whose illimitable are the petty divergences and discrepancies of time are reconciled.

With the instinct of the artist, Marion, when her burden was no longer personally supportable, had fled to the protection of this mighty, impersonal friend, as another might have sought support in prayer. She prayed through her music. As she went on, the groping and distressful cadences became fewer, and streams of strength and faith flowed in, bringing into view profound symmetries, defining exquisite interior structural graces, and expressing lovely traceries of outward beauty. The immortal soul was overcoming its mortal impediments, and uplifting us along with it in its august triumph; for it seemed to me, glancing from face to face, that each of us, in his or her degree, was undergoing a subtle transformation. There is no gauging the influence of this mysterious sovereign of earth and sky.

Then the vibrations of the according strings grew faint, and with a thrill of penetrating pleasure I heard the far-off coming of the diviner voice.

It was Marion's voice, yet a voice which neither I nor any other had ever heard till then. Cattermole observed the change at once, and lifted his head with a strange look, passing from Marion to Morton and then reverting to her. Morton did not respond; for some moments past he had seemed to be oblivious to his surroundings; he sat with his head thrown back on the cushion of the divan, his handsome, hard face fully exposed, with an expression upon it which my fancy compared with that of some sinister young Roman emperor, a Caligula or Domitian, awaiting the coming of the slaves appointed to kill him, while at the same time arose before his mind a vision of the lost beauty and glory of the life he might have led. When Marion began to sing he altered his position slightly, until by degrees his black gaze was fixed upon her, and he leaned forward, drawing a long breath at intervals. As for Mrs. Chantrey, she seemed more moved by the effect of the singing upon Morton and Cattermole than by the singing itself. But nothing else is so nearly extinct as the soul of a woman of the world and of society who has spent her life in the sturdy sacrifice of truth, honor and generosity for the sake of social rewards.

What the song was that Marion sang, or whether she sang words at all, I did not know at the time, and have not determined since; though, if words there were, I should hazard that they were German. But after a few bars I became satisfied that she was, at that place and time, the greatest of singers. Her method was always excellent; but now it came freighted with such a warbling and soaring splendor of sound as never before had blessed my ears. The genius or gift of a human life culminates at a given psychological moment and quivers on the borders of the infinite; it may not sustain that height, or perhaps again attain it, but humanity has been satisfied, and the image of God vindicated. I felt, as I listened, that I was hearing what could be heard but once, and that the wisdom of sages and of centuries could not illuminate the hidden places of existence as did the voice of this girl. We elders had argued and wrangled across the dinner table just now, and had but darkened counsel. Perfect beauty, while we are under its influence, solves riddles and removes mountains, though it is true that we cannot maintain of ourselves the heights to which it lifts us. Could we stay in the heaven to which music bears us, the Golden Age would shine round us always; but it gives the glorious glimpse only as an inspiration, and we must climb for ourselves, helped only by the memory of beauty.

Here, then, was the voice to which nations must do homage; a voice born of the breaking up of the deeps in the girl's soul and the rousing into consciousness of hitherto slumbering faculties and perceptions. This was what Cattermole had professed to desire; but he could not pretend that it had been attained by such means as he had suggested. So long as the spell was on me—the spiritual enlargement and exhilaration—I yielded myself to them; but when she ceased, and the hands that had controlled the keys dropped in her lap, I could speculate how the event would affect the questionable understanding which, I suspected, existed between Cattermole and Morton. The situation had become more extraordinary.

Marion swung slowly round on the music stool and faced us.

IX

“A few days ago,” Cattermole said, drawing up a chair and seating himself near her, “a young girl came here with a charming talent; now, in her place, is a great artist, whom it would be presumptuous to praise. How has the miracle happened?”

“You know all I can tell you; you have heard me sing,” was Marion's reply, quietly meeting his eyes.

“You ask explanations, Cattermole; why don't you give them?” demanded I, resolved that Marion should not be forced from her true position in the matter.

He smiled. “Oh, I am willing to concede my error, so far as this instance goes,” said he. “I did but wish to afford nature an opportunity; but Marion seems to have captured the treasure independently of the means I had supplied for the purpose.”

“What means?” asked Marion, in a low but imperious tone.

“The great, universal means, that rules the world and changes it. You were the princess of the fairy tale, who had all the other gifts, but lacked the greatest of all, without which the others lost their value.”

But she held him to the point. “You planned something?”

For the first time in my knowledge Cattermole appeared embarrassed. The clear regard of the girl's intent brown eyes appeared to be more than he could sustain. And yet his share in the transaction—apart from his vicious philosophizing about it at dinner—had been innocent enough. He had but furnished the princess with atrial prince. It was the latter who ought to feel embarrassed.

“Why, my dear child,” put in Mrs. Chantrey, gallantly coming to her host's assistance, “one would fancy, from your tone, that to invite young folks to meet each other was a solecism, instead of a kindness. I'm sure we are much indebted to Mr. Cattermole for introducing Mr. Travers to us; and we hope he won't let us lose sight of him.”

“If you two could have learned to care for each other, I won't deny that it would have gratified me,” Cattermole now said. “If it was a liberty, can you pardon it?”

“That would be nothing,” she said, and paused. I thought she was going to look at Travers; but she continued to address Cattermole. “I'll tell you something—because it is all changed now; it is as if I spoke of another person, not myself. Before coming here, I thought I should never care for anyone. I did not wish to; I wished to love only my music. But when I had been here a little while I thought there was one man I could care for, if he cared for me. But I knew he would not, except, perhaps, as a man would care for his daughter. That was as near as love could ever come to me.”

Mrs. Chantrey half started from her chair and fell back with a gasp. It was certainly trying for her; but nobody thought of her just then. Cattermole was like one before whose face a spirit passes and the hair of his flesh stands up. He stared rigidly at Marion, and one hand slowly rose, as if to arrest the flight of some incredible marvel which had brushed him with its wings, only to escape him forever. In the midst of my own amazement I was sorry for him. He had meddled with destiny, and he had his reward! I little knew what was still to be revealed.

She had not finished. “A terrible thing happened to me,” she said. “It need not be told. It was like breathing poison; something died in me. The girl I was, with that dream she had, was gone. But I came to myself after a while as I am now, and shall always be. My music saved me, though I had broken faith with it. It is here still,” she added, putting her hand on her bosom with that rare smile, like fragrance from a flower—a smile that made tears gush to my eyes.

She went on after a moment: “I would not have spoken of this foolish thing if it were not like something that had never been, and to ask your pardon for it. But I still feel that you are a man whom it is an honor to know—a truly good and noble man; so what you seemed to say just now about planning something troubled me. You did not mean—did you?—that you had suggested to—” she would not look at Travers, but she extended one arm in the direction where he sat “him, that he should make any advances to me?”

Now was the moment for me to interpose. “Marion,” said I, rising, “you must let me escort you and your mother out of the room. I have some business to talk with these gentlemen which you would best not listen to.”

Morton Travers jumped up, walked to the half open door, and closed it. Then he faced round and confronted us.

“No one will leave this room till I have had my say,” said he.

“Morton!” said Cattermole, in a warning voice.

But the young man was as little to be controlled as an Indian running amuck. His face was hard as flint and coldly savage. He looked at Cattermole with hatred and contempt.

“I'm done with you,” said he. “You have experimented once too often. After I've spoken my piece, you can do as you like. You think you know it all,” he added, glancing at me, “but you don't yet know Mr. Cattermole. After I have explained him, Miss Chantrey can judge whether he is a truly good and noble man, whom it's an honor to know! That was the straw that broke my back. I'm not going to ask your forgiveness, Miss Chantrey; but you have made me feel something to-night. If I had felt toward you as I do now, when this man”—nodding toward Cattermole—“proposed his experiment to me, I'd have strangled him like a cat!”

He put out his powerful right arm and clenched the fingers suggestively. Cattermole watched him closely, but with a touch of amusement, I fancied. “Be succinct, my dear Morton,” he said, lightly, “and then open the door and tell the man to bring in coffee.”

The other leaned his shoulders against the door and put his hands in his pockets. “Your story about the forgery was a lie. My father died before I entered college. I was one of your experiments. You picked me up and petted and flattered me; you laid the trap for me—I fell into it; you confronted me with the proofs—and I had the choice between going to State's prison and becoming your Man Friday. You are fond of experimenting with human nature, as you put it, and you and I have done some very shady things in our time, Cattermole. I was very useful to you in setting up the game for you to bring down. I took all the risks, and you had all the sport. Your pay was good, and I have no excuses to make. But it is just as well for all concerned that this last affair miscarried.”

“Cattermole,” said I, “these women must not hear any more. Is anything that he's saying true?”

“If I attempted to tell the story, I might give it a little different complexion; but it may go as it is,” he replied, pushing his fingers through his hair and smiling at me. “Yes, I've been a Diogenes, searching, in my own way, for an honest man or woman. But I am getting tired of the occupation, like my able young assistant here; the issue of our experiments has been too monotonous. I am by no means a harsh judge of human frailty; in my opinion, sin is an important and interesting element in life, and not without its amiable side. We can't get rid of it, and, if we are wise, we shall cease some time to persecute it as we do. It is the persecution that does most of the mischief. It necessitates hypocrisy, which is, after all, the least palatable of our evils. But no matter now! Yes, Miss Chantrey, I did have an understanding with Mr. Travers concerning you, and it was not like most of my experiments: there was a little personal feeling mixed up with it. I had borne a grudge against your excellent mother on account of a youthful jest which she played on me. I ought to be ashamed of myself for remembering it so many years; but it made a considerable difference in my life. I knew it would be impossible to touch her by any personal attack, but it occurred to me that I might reach her through you. I had not then had the pleasure of meeting you, and I will also say—more to spare your feelings than my own—that I had not contemplated any such clumsy brutality as I am told occurred at Bowlder Point. Had it any other issue than it had, I should never have forgiven myself. I do not blame my Man Friday,” he added, pleasantly, “but he failed to catch the spirit of my instructions; or perhaps the manifest hopelessness of carrying them out put him beside himself.”

“Put what you like on me; there will be enough left for you!” said Morton, grimly.

“We will bear each other's burdens,” returned the other, in a friendly manner. “But I have one more remark to make. I am an old man—not so much in years as in feelings. I cannot look back on much that gives me pleasure, and I look forward to nothing. But the music that came from your throat to-day, Miss Chantrey—whatever influence created it—has made me wish that there may be a home where love and truth and beauty may dwell together eternally, with no experimenters or mischief-makers to disturb them. And the statement of your momentary attitude toward me, which took me entirely by surprise, gave me a sensation which I would not exchange for any bribe, material or spiritual; and, nevertheless, I would not wish to inflict the pain of it upon my deadliest enemy. These two events, my dear young lady, must explain anything inconsistent or unexpected in my present behavior. I am not the man I was an hour ago. I accept your detestation with relief and eagerness; I only wish your heart could make it a thousandfold bitterer and more unrelenting than it is.”

“We have had enough of this,” said I. “I shall make arrangements to take these ladies away to-night, Cattermole. You have murdered yourself.”

He threw back his head with a soft laugh that recalled to me the days of his young manhood, when he often laughed in that way.

Then he came forward toward Morton Travers, still standing at the door. “There are the keys of my desk,” he said, taking the bunch from his pocket; “you will find there the papers which have caused you so much anxiety. I have no further use for them, or for you.” I presume he referred to documents establishing the charge of forgery. “And now,” he added, with a sudden air of sharp authority, which made the sullen athlete start and cringe, “open the door and let my guests pass out!”

•••••••

The latter proceedings had been accompanied by the almost total collapse of Mrs. Chantrey, whose great social talents did not fit her to sustain such scenes; she leaned so heavily on my arm, and her groans were so unbecoming, that I felt sure she was, perhaps for the first time in her life since childhood, acting very much as she felt.

Marion, whose silence had been one of the most impressive features in the terrible scene, and who had borne herself through it as a sad young angel might, reluctantly but inevitably sitting there in judgment, walked out with her head erect, her eyes cast down. There was some mighty source of strength in her pure young nature. Why should I not say that God protects His own, and bears them safe through perils and trials that bring the profane to shipwreck? She went out, not glancing to the right or left, though she was full of mercy. Travers followed us at a distance, but Cattermole remained alone.

After getting Mrs. Chantrey upstairs, her condition became such that, after an hour's efforts, it was plain that she could not leave the house that night. I went down to speak to Cattermole. The lights had not been turned down in the drawing-room, so I went in there. He was sitting at the piano, with his head resting on his arms upon the key-board. He was dead. The symptoms were those of heart failure; but I knew that he was a man skilled in poisons. His features were tranquil, and looked reverend, amid his white hair.

I heard a sigh behind me, and, turning, saw Marion, who had followed me. Beyond, in the shadow of the doorway, lurked the figure of Morton Travers, with his papers in his hand. They were like the good and the evil angel, waiting for the dead man's soul.