 | CHAPTER XXIII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold |  |
23. CHAPTER XXIII.
The tête-à-tête reverie (for both were perplexed with
thoughts which struggled in vain for precedence in
words) was interrupted, at last, by the princess's rising,
with a smile, and returning to the model on which she
had been at work.
“It shows how limited is Art, after all,” she said
“that we cannot express, in marble or on canvas, the
two-person identity, which gives so much trouble in love.
How would any likeness of you, for instance, resemble
both Mr. Fane the attaché and my friend Paul the artist—
two very separate gentlemen, who have inspired, it appears,
very different passions in two wholly unlike and separate
ladies! I venture to say (though both the attaché and
the artist inhabit the one body), you look wholly different
to the eyes of the two.”
“Yet,” said Paul, with a still very abstracted air, “I
have not willingly concealed, either the man of society or
the artist—though it would appear that I am but one of
these at a time. Your highness still leaves me in my
dilemma, however. By which of the two letters I have
now read to you, does my honor most bind me to be
guided?”
“Why, to tell the truth,” she replied, after a moment
of hesitation, “if the claims of both are not fairly equal,
they are both, at least, so strong, that a preference of
either must seem an injustice to the other. Mrs. Paleford
would seem to have written without consulting her
daughter—but she assumes that there is a mutually understood
passion between you and Sybil, and that the girl's
happiness depends on marrying you.”
“Possibly a very incorrect opinion on the part of Mrs
Paleford,” said Paul (contending, as he spoke, with his
self-reproving memory of the birthday breakfast), “for,
though chance circumstances may have given me a
temporary favor in the young lady's eyes, her ideal of
me (as you just now said) is but a partial and imperfect
one. I am not the complete and mere man of society
that she then took me to be. Would her happiness be
best consulted by a marriage (even if she should prove
to wish it), with one she but half understands?”
“Why, in finding you to be more than she first loved
look of gravity, “I question the probability of a disappointment.
Very few marriages have surprises on that
side.”
“But may she not think the artist rather a subtraction
from the man of the world than an addition to his
merits? She looks upon Art, at present, as a mere
amateur accomplishment of mine—like a taste for autographs
or minerals. It may be a surprise the other
way, to find that the outer and more courtly world,
to which she had supposed me to belong altogether,
must lessen gradually in interest—the inner and artist
world, for which she has no sympathy, assuming proportionately
greater importance.”
“Are you sure that she has no taste for Art, then?”
asked his friend.
“The good taste of a refined education, undoubtedly,”
proceeded Paul, with the monotone of one thinking aloud;
“she could scarce be her mother's daughter without that.
But—as your highness well knows—there must be more
than mere taste, to produce the sympathy which is demanded
from love by an intellectual inner nature. The
artist, to be happy, must be more loved for his genius
than his person. The productions of his pencil must be
more endearing than his manners or social accomplishments.
And what would be more melancholv for herself,
of a chasm of dissimilarity—her husband requiring, more
and more, that love on the altar of genius which she has
no fire of sympathy to kindle!”
“Yet is not her present preference for you an instinctive
appreciation of your whole nature?” inquired the princess,
evidently interested for the heart under discussion.
“That Miss Sybil entertains for me partly the fancy or
natural liking upon which girls oftenest marry,” said Paul,
“I think very probable. But her preference is partly also
the expression of an antagonism. Her imaginary horror
chances to be what is commonly called a `mercenary
match,' and, with my avowed poverty, her girlish romance
is, of course, enlisted, as her love would be disinterested.
But poverty is not an attraction that would wear bright
with time and using.”
“Nor would the contrary,” said the princess significantly.
“But the contrary, at least, gives the means of trying
other resources for happiness,” insisted Paul. “Except to
very impassioned natures, a romantic love is scarce a
necessity; and wealth has many a compensation for the
heart that has failed of its youthful ideal. And I am
by no means sure that my rival, Mr. Ashly, might not
develop so as to become even the romantic ideal of Miss
Sybil's maturer fancy.”
“What—is there a wealthy lover in waiting for her?”
inquired the princess, to whom this part of the argument
was new.
Paul gave the history of the rivalry at the birthday
breakfast (narrated in a previous chapter), but without
confessing fully to the motive which had prompted his
own successful playing of the lover.
“Pardon me,” said his friend (as he concluded with
the account of Mr. Ashly's appreciation of the portrait),
“pardon me, my dear Mr. Fane, but you seem to me,
now, to have incurred a responsibility I had not before
soen. With so intentional a winning for yourself of the
young lady's preference, especially as it amounted to the
shutting off of another lover, you are bound not to disappoint
that preference, should it remain constant to
you.”
“But suppose the displaced lover could be reinstated?”
replied Paul, somewhat perplexed, but giving voice to his
secret hope of repairing his wrong to Mr. Ashly.
“Ah! there you express what offers a loophole of
escape for you,” assented his reproving listener; “though
young ladies' hearts are not very transferable commodities,
especially by the holders themselves. I will not aks how
you propose to reinstate Mr. Ashly, for that, at least, must
be a very delicate management of your secrets as a lover;
but (if you will excuse a woman's curiosity) I should like
which you are promising yourself from this better
love in the background.”
Paul smiled, and balanced his pencil upon his finger for
a moment or two of silence.
“I have had,” he said at last, “what most lovers have
not—a fair trial of my promised happiness. Mary Evenden
was brought up with me as a sister, and has shown,
by years of constancy, her appreciation of the inner nature
for which I desire to be loved.”
“And were you sure, always, of the secret spring of her
sympathy with you? Might it not have been an instinctive
natural affection, to which you yourself gave the name you
wished it to bear? How sure are you that it was wholly
intellectual?” questioned the princess.
Paul pressed his hand upon his eyes, and forced back all
his memory upon the days in his hidden studio at home.
“It may be an abstraction of a somewhat visionary boyhood,”
he thoughtfully went on to say, “but, to me the
most dream-craved sweetness of love, as well as its coldly
measured best dignity and elevation, consists in its being
inspired by the qualities of the mind only. Perhaps there
is a refinement of vanity in not being willing to be admired
for what any one else can do as well. I certainly could
never feel a value for interest I had awakened merely by
my manners or flatteries, or by the mere animal magnetism
Evenden's difference, in this respect, from all others who
were partial or kind to me—the difference which was the
secret of her enduring fascination—I could not have been
mistaken, I think.”
“Yet lovers are but poor anatomists of their own happiness,”
still objected the princess.
“It was the reasonableness of my happiness which made
part of its charm,” Paul pursued his confession by insisting.
“There was no intoxication of the fancy—no effervescence
of feeling, the sparkle of which was lost in calmer
hours. It was gentle and well-considered attention, given
to that which was noblest and purest in my nature.
Every thought was recognized as it fell from the lips,
every expression as it breathed through the features, every
gleam of inspired work as it guided the pencil. And oh!
who can describe the luxury of this intimate companionship
of appreciation? Who (since, as your highness
asserted just now, there may be two persons in one) can
weigh, for an instant, the love for the mortal against that
for the immortal—the love for grace and personal agreeableness
that lessen and disappear as life gets on, against
that for talent and intellectual acquirement, which, on the
contrary, while life lasts, continue to ripen and grow more
admirable?”
“A beautiful picture,” said the princess, with a smile,
you so tenderly remember. But pray do not forget
that the `mortal' is slighted while the `immortal' is thus
exclusively attended to, and that Nature does not long
permit such partialities without a murmur. Intimate as
you were, it is my impression that there is a Miss Evenden
and a Mr. Fane who are yet to make each other's acquaintance.
The chrysalis which you have both passed through,
since your separation, will present each a stranger to the
other—two strangers who may, very possibly, not be content
with the old love which is not altogether suited to
their new tastes.”
Paul shook his head incredulously, while he smiled at
the princess's scepticism of what, to him, was like a
religion.
“You must excuse me,” she continued (moulding indolently
upon her model as she gave vent to her speculations
on the problem he had submitted to her), “but I think
your coming renewal of intimacy, with your old playmate,
a little critical. I am not certain that you would become
lovers again, even if your proposed disentanglement from
Miss Paleford had left you quite free to look forward to it.
Commencing again, from habit, with the exchange of
merely intellectual sympathies, there would be, on both
sides, insufficiency and disappointment. You are, both of
you, of the higher class of natures which require love in
of all qualities, personal and intellectual, and entireness
of appreciation and admiration.”
“Love not often found,” said Paul, musingly, as he
strove to lay aside his own theory and adopt, for the sake
of frank argument, that of his companion.
“No!—you would scarce more than complete such an
ideal lady-love by a pouring of both these young hearts—
Sybil's and Mary's—into one. I suppose, in fact” (continued
the still busy sculptress, with an arch look from
under her hat), “that the two might love on—each having
the monopoly of all she admires in you, without interference
with the other.”
“Ah, pray do not make me out a flirt and vaurien, even
in theory!” interrupted Paul, deprccatingly.
“Your alarm is needless,” said the princess, “for my
theory was both carelessly and incorrectly stated. It need
not be `love' by which you should thus accept the sympathy
and reciprocity of two natures. Or, if you accept
love from the one heart, it would show very little self-control
or elevation of nature if there could not be friendship
—at least unexceptionably pure—with the other. Remember
I am reasoning in the dark as to your own particular
position, not having seen Mary Evenden, and not knowing
whether she is in herself one of these rare completenesses
—responsive to all that requires sympathy, either in the
come to my knowledge, such has not been the happy destiny
of genius. Its two-fold nature has not often found,
in one heart and mind, all its needs of recognition and
reply.”
“You make genius out to be naturally the most unhappy
of lovers,” said Paul, beginning to be amused with
the generalizing that had digressed from his own more
special troubles.
“Perhaps so,” continued the fair disputant, after a
moment's pause; “and I am inclined to think that genius
could (better than other natures, and certainly better for
itself), do without what is called `love,' altogether. The
main portions of the sympathy it needs might be found in
intimacies which could correctly and irreproachably be
called `friendships;' and its motives and conduct are
oftenest misunderstood, because it requires, from these
friendships, a tenderness of mental sympathy which seems,
to common observers, possible only with love. I do not
think the most intimate friends of men of genius need to
be of the opposite sex. It is only because women's minds
are more delicate and impressible, that it commonly is so.
But, by either wholly ignoring love (or classing it among
the instincts that are kept subdued and out of sight) while
the sympathies of the mind are declared to be of no sex,
but to have full and free liberty to choose and act without
native and proper element.”
“Of which higher philosophy you, yourself, my dear
princess,” said Paul, with a low inclination of his head,
“are a charming proof and illustration. Yet I wish, out
of your beautiful speculations, I could draw some definite
advice as to my best course of conduct to-morrow. Shall
I leave Florence without awaiting the coming of Mary
Evenden (in obedience to the warning which my mother's
letter intended to give me), not seeing her while my honor
is involved to give preference to another—or would there
be more rudeness than tenderness of consideration in so
manifest an avoidance, and, should I stay, therefore, and
trust to the chances of open extrication from my dilemma?”
“Very fairly stated,” said the princess; “and I will
take the responsibility of giving a definite answer. Stay
in Florence! See Mary Evenden to-morrow! But, understand
me, I am am not speaking thus venturesomely without
some hope of assisting you. With your leave, I will
myself become your rival, not as a lover, but (according to
my theory just laid down) as a friend. To leave her alone
with you, a stranger in Florence, with only your attendance
and society, would make, whatever risk there is, more
imminent, to say the least. But you say she is an artist,
as well as ourselves. Bring her to my studio, and let me
make a sister-artist's appeal to her ready sympathies! I
wholly—her attention and enthusiasm. If I interest her,
as I thus hope to do, you will be left to yourself for a
while, and the opportunity which you wish is secured to
you, is it not?”
There was generous and kindly considerateness, as well
as wisdom, in this thought of the princess's; and Paul took
his leave, after gratefully accepting both the advice and its
proffered aid. And to this eventful morrow he looked forward,
for the remainder of the day, with thoughts of far
less sadness and perplexity than before.
| CHAPTER XXIII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold | |