Grey."The grim humour of the thing stunned him momentarily and he laughed harshly. Then he flung himself down in a passion of grief. In the morning he took pen and paper again, after a night of sleepless distress.
"You cannot mean what you say. That white womanly soul of yours must wake to love me some day. You have stood between me and the depths, and there has been no shame in the life that I offer you, since you came into it.
"Oh, you perfect thing, you perfect thing, you don't know what you are to me! Constance, let me come!"
The answer was promptly forthcoming:
"I cannot promise what you ask, but you may come and see me if you wish."
Pale with expectancy, Hayward was only the ghost of himself when the servant admitted him. He had waited but a moment when Constance entered the room wearing the gown in which he had first seen her. He rose to meet her, but she came and sat down by his side.
"Listen," she said, "and I will tell you how I feel. I am twenty-five and I have never 'cared.' I do not believe that I ever shall care, for the love that we read of is almost incomprehensible to me. You cannot marry such a woman."
His answer was fervent, his words crowded one upon another in a vehement flood, and his voice was low and hoarse with pent-up emotion, as he implored her to believe in him, trust him, and be his wife, – kneeling at her feet and kissing her hands in abject humility.
It was very hard for her to say what she must, but with an effort she rose and drew away from him.
"I must be true to myself and to you," she said, "and I can say nothing but the old bitter No."
White and wretched, he went away, leaving her white and wretched behind him.
For days and weeks thereafter, Hayward painted busily. Jennings went to see him one afternoon.
"Look here, old fellow," he said, "what's the matter? I know I was ungentlemanly about the handkerchief, but that's no reason why you should cut us all this way. Can't you forget about it?"
"Why, Jennings, old boy, I haven't cut anybody."
"No, but you've tired of us, and you can't hide it. Come down the river with us to-night. The fellows have got a yacht, and we'll have supper on board with plenty of champagne. Won't you come?"
Hayward was seriously tempted. He knew what "the time" would mean – the ecstasy of it and the dull penalties which would follow. But that day by the river came into his memory: a sweet sunlit face, and a woman's voice saying to him: "When a man's art is true, it is because he himself is true."
"Jennings," he said, "do I look like a man who would make good company at a champagne supper? You know what's the matter with me. Why don't you just sensibly drop me?"
Jennings begged, and mocked, and bullied, all in a good-natured way, but his friend was firm. When he went out, Hayward locked the studio door and drew his half finished picture from behind a screen.
"She was right," he said to himself.
Constance sailed. He dreamed of his picture as being hung in the Salon, and of her seeing it there. By and by it was finished, but the artist's strength was gone, and his physician ordered him away from his work.
When he returned, restored to health, the picture was placed on exhibition. Crowds thronged the gallery, columns and pages were written in its praise, and astonishing prices were offered for it, but the picture was not for sale. It, too, crossed the water, and the dream which had comforted him for many months at last came true.
When Constance looked upon Hayward's painting, her heart leaped as if it would leave her breast. White, radiant, and glorified, it was she herself who stood in the centre of the canvas. That self-reliant, fearless pose seemed to radiate infinite calm. Behind her raged the powers of darkness, utterly helpless to pass the line on which she stood. Her face seemed to illumine the shadows around her; her figure was instinct with grace and strength. Below the picture was the name: The White Shield.
The beauty of the conception dawned upon her slowly. Pale and trembling, she stood there, forgetful of the place, and the throng around her. At length she knew what she meant to him; that his art at last rang true because he had loved her enough to be a man for her sake.
She dared not linger before it then, but she came again when the place was empty, and stood before her lover's work, like one in a dream. The fiends in the shadow showed her the might of the temptations he had fought down. She gazed at her own glorified face until her eyes filled with tears. With a great throb which was almost pain, Constance woke to the knowledge that she loved him, even as he loved her – well enough to stand between him and danger till she herself should fall.
The old grey guard, passing through the room, saw her upturned face in that moment of exaltation. It was the same that he saw in the picture above, and he quietly went away to wait until Constance came out, her face flushed and her eyes shining like stars, before he locked the door.
That night the cable trembled with a message to America. It reached Hayward the next morning as he sat reading the daily paper. The envelope fluttered unheeding to the floor, and his face grew tender then radiant as he read the few words which told him that his picture had rewarded his love.
"Wait," he said to the messenger boy. Hurriedly he wrote the answer: "Sailing next steamer" – then, utterly oblivious of the additional expense, he added another word, which must have been very expressive, for Constance turned crimson when it reached her – perhaps because the discerning genius who copies cablegrams in typewriting had put the last word in capitals, thinking that the message came from a Mr. Darling.
An International Affair
The Committee of Literary Extension was holding its first meeting. Five girls sat around a glowing gas log and nibbled daintily at some chocolates which had been sent to the hostess.
"Come, Margaret, you're the chairman of this committee; please tell us what it is all for," suggested Grace Hayes.
"Well, girls, I hardly know how to begin. Most of us in travelling have seen those little huts along the railroad with a little bit of cultivated ground around each one. They are the very embodiment of desolation. I have seen whole families come out to stare at the train as it whirled by, and I have often wondered what place there could be for such people in this beautiful, happy world – why I should have my books and friends and the thousand other things that have been given to me, while other people, and worst of all, other women, have to live lives like that.
"There are boys upon farms, in reform schools, and in little towns who scarcely ever see even a newspaper, and who do not know what a magazine is.
"It is to reach this class of people that this work has been undertaken, and for this purpose our committee has been appointed. Fifteen or twenty magazines and illustrated papers come to us every month – even to the few who are here to-day: perhaps some of you see even more than this. After we have read them, we might send them to these people instead of burning them, and who can tell how many starving minds we may make better, and happier, in this simple way, and with very little effort on our part?"
"Can they read?" It was Grace, an always practical individual, who spoke.
"If they can't, they can learn," responded Miss Stone. "It will be an incentive to their best efforts in every way."
Katherine Bryant
